Addressing the correlation of Stokes-shifted photons emitted from two quantum emitters

Abstract

In resonance fluorescence excitation experiments, light emitted from solid-state quantum emitters is typically filtered to eliminate the laser photons, ensuring that only red-shifted Stokes photons are detected. However, theoretical analyses of the fluorescence intensity correlation often model emitters as two-level systems, focusing on light emitted exclusively from the purely electronic transition (the zero-phonon line), or they rely on statistical approaches based on conditional probabilities that neglect the quantum coherence between the emitters and the coherence between the electric fields they generate. Here, we propose a model to characterize the correlation of either zero-phonon line photons or Stokes-shifted photons. This model successfully reproduces the experimental correlation of Stokes-shifted photons emitted from two interacting molecules and predicts that this correlation is affected by quantum coherence. Besides, we analyze the role of quantum coherence in the Stokes-shifted emission from two distant emitters, showing a sharp peak at zero time delay due to the Hanbury Brown--Twiss effect.