Distinguishability, contrast and complementarity in multimode two-particle interferences

Abstract

Multimode two-particle systems show interference effects in one-particle detections when both particles have common modes. We explore the possibility of extending the usual concepts of distinguishability and visibility to these types of systems. Distinguishability will refer now to the balance between common and different modes of a two-particle system, instead of the standard definition concerning available alternatives for a one-particle system. On the other hand, the usual concept of visibility is not suitable for our problem and must be replaced with that of contrast, measuring the ratio of detection probabilities with and without interference effects. Finally, we show that for the type of states considered in the paper there is a complementarity relation between distinguishability and contrast for two-bosons systems. In contrast, there is no two-fermion counterpart.