Two-beam light with ’checkered-pattern’ photon-number distributions

• Published in: Optics express Vol. 29; no. 19; p. 29704
• Main Authors: Peřina, Jan, Michálek, Václav, Machulka, Radek, Haderka, Ondřej
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 13.09.2021
• ISSN: 1094-4087; 1094-4087
• DOI: 10.1364/OE.431204

Photon-number-resolved post-selection on one beam out of a correlated system of three beams with bi-partite photon-number correlations gives rise to joint photon-number distributions with the probabilities forming checkered patterns. These patterns originate in the convolution of two constituting photon-number distributions, one endowed with correlations in photon numbers, the other exhibiting anti-correlations in photon-number fluctuations. Using three twin beams of comparable intensity whose constituting beams suitably overlap on the photocathode of a photon-number-resolving iCCD camera, we experimentally as well as theoretically analyze the properties of such states as they change with the varying ratio of the correlated and anti-correlated contributions. The experimental photocount 2D histograms of the fields post-selected by the iCCD camera that are reconstructed by the maximum-likelihood approach confirm their non-classicality though the limited detection efficiency in post-selection conceals the checkered patterns. Contrary to this, the maximum-likelihood reconstruction of the experimental 3D photocount histogram similarly as a suitable 3D Gaussian fit, that reveal the states as they would be obtained by ideal post-selection, provide the photon-number distributions with the checkered patterns. The corresponding quasi-distributions of integrated intensities are determined. Nonclassical properties of the generated states are investigated using suitable non-classicality criteria and the corresponding non-classicality depths. These states with their correlations of varying intensity are prospective for two-photon excitations of atoms and molecules as well as two-photon spectroscopy.