A Generalized Formulation of Two-Particle Interference

Abstract: Two-photon interference is an interesting quantum phenomenon that is usually captured in two distinct types of experiments, namely the Hanbury-Brown-Twiss (HBT) experiment and the Hong- Ou-Mandel (HOM) experiment. While the HBT experiment was carried out much earlier in 1956, with classical light, the demonstration of the HOM effect came much later in 1987. Unlike the former, the latter has frequently been argued to be a purely quantum effect. A generalized formulation of two-particle interference is presented here. The HOM and the quantum HBT effects emerge as special cases in the general analysis. A realizable two-particle interference experiment, which is intermediate between the two effects, is proposed and analyzed. Thus two-particle interference is shown to be a single phenomenon with various possible implementations, including the HBT and HOM setups.