Signatures of Hong-Ou-Mandel Interference at Microwave Frequencies
Abstract
Two-photon quantum interference at a beam splitter, commonly known as Hong-Ou-Mandel interference, was recently demonstrated with microwave-frequency photons by Lang et al.\,lang:microwaveHOM. This experiment employed circuit QED systems as sources of microwave photons, and was based on the measurement of second-order cross-correlation and auto-correlation functions of the microwave fields at the outputs of the beam splitter. Here we present the calculation of these correlation functions for the cases of inputs corresponding to: (i) trains of pulsed Gaussian or Lorentzian single microwave photons, and (ii) resonant fluorescent microwave fields from continuously-driven circuit QED systems. The calculations include the effects of the finite bandwidth of the detection scheme. In both cases, the signature of two-photon quantum interference is a suppression of the second-order cross-correlation function for small delays. The experiment described in Ref. lang:microwaveHOM was performed with trains of Lorentzian single photons, and very good agreement between the calculations and the experimental data was obtained.
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