Duality between partial coherence and partial entanglement

Abstract

Entangled-photon pairs (biphotons) generated by spontaneous optical parametric down-conversion exhibit a number of properties that are analogous to those of ordinary photons generated by incoherent sources. The spatial pump-field distribution and the two-particle wave function in the biphoton case play the respective roles of the source intensity distribution and the second-order coherence function in the incoherent case. The van Cittert–Zernike theorem, which is applicable for incoherent optical sources emitting independent photons, has a counterpart for biphotons. Likewise, the partial-coherence theory of image formation has an analogous counterpart for biphoton beams transporting spatial information. However, an underlying duality, rather than analogy, accompanies the mathematical similarity between incoherent and biphoton emissions if the comparison is made between the photon count rate in the incoherent case and the biphoton count rate in the entangled-photon case. The smaller the size of an incoherent source, the more separable is the coherence function and the more coherent is the field, and therefore the higher the visibility of ordinary interference fringes. In contrast, the narrower the size of a biphoton pump source, the more separable is the wave function and the less entangled is the field, and therefore the lower the visibility of biphoton interference fringes. This duality is similar to the complementarity between single and two-photon interference exhibited for biphotons.