General Rules for Bosonic Bunching in Multimode Interferometers

Abstract

We perform a comprehensive set of experiments that characterize bosonic bunching of up to three photons in interferometers of up to 16 modes. Our experiments verify two rules that govern bosonic bunching. The first rule, obtained recently, predicts the average behavior of the bunching probability and is known as the bosonic birthday paradox. The second rule is new and establishes a n!-factor quantum enhancement for the probability that all n bosons bunch in a single output mode, with respect to the case of distinguishable bosons. In addition to its fundamental importance in phenomena such as Bose-Einstein condensation, bosonic bunching can be exploited in applications such as linear optical quantum computing and quantum-enhanced metrology.