Correlation in single-photon experiments

Abstract

Correlations of detection events in photodetectors placed at the opposite sides of a beam splitter are studied in the frame of classical probability theory. It is assumed that there is always one photon present during one elementary measurement (one measurement act). Due to the conservation of energy, thereis a strict anticorrelation in detections in one elementary experiment, because the photon cannot excite both of the detectors at the same time. It is explicitely shown in several examples that the bunching or anti-bunching of the counts in serieses of elementary single-photon experiments are governed by the statistical properties of grouping the sequences of the elementary measurements.