Propagation of transverse intensity correlations of a two-photon state

D. S. Tasca, S. P. Walborn, F. Toscano, P. Pellat-Finet, P. H. Souto Ribeiro

Published 2009-02-10Version 1

The propagation of transverse spatial correlations of photon pairs through arbitrary first-order linear optical systems is studied experimentally and theoretically using the fractional Fourier transform. Highly-correlated photon pairs in an EPR-like state are produced by spontaneous parametric down-conversion and subject to optical fractional Fourier transform systems. It is shown that the joint detection probability can display either correlation, anti-correlation, or no correlation, depending on the sum of the orders $\alpha$ and $\beta$ of the transforms of the down-converted photons. We present analytical results for the propagation of the perfectly correlated EPR state, and numerical results for the propagation of the two-photon state produced from parametric down-conversion. We find good agreement between theory and experiment.