The Nonlocal Pancharatnam Phase in Two-Photon Interferometry

Poonam Mehta, Joseph Samuel, Supurna Sinha

Published 2010-02-08, updated 2010-09-03Version 3

We propose a polarised intensity interferometry experiment, which measures the nonlocal Pancharatnam phase acquired by a pair of Hanbury Brown-Twiss photons. The setup involves two polarised thermal sources illuminating two polarised detectors. Varying the relative polarisation angle of the detectors introduces a two photon geometric phase. Local measurements at either detector do not reveal the effects of the phase, which is an optical analog of the multiparticle Aharonov-Bohm effect. The geometric phase sheds light on the three slit experiment and suggests ways of tuning entanglement.