Hong-Ou-Mandel interference of more than 10 indistinguishable atoms

Abstract:When two indistinguishable bosons interfere at a beam splitter, they both exit through the same output port. This foundational quantum-mechanical phenomenon, known as the Hong-Ou-Mandel (HOM) effect, has become a cornerstone in the field of quantum information. It also extends to many indistinguishable particles, resulting in complex interference patterns. However, despite of its fundamental and applied interest, the many-particle effect has only been observed in notoriously lossy photonic systems, but a realization with atomic systems has remained elusive until now. Here, we demonstrate HOM interference with up to 12 indistinguishable neutral atoms in a system with negligible loss. Our single-particle counting clearly reveals parity oscillations, a bunching envelope and genuine multi-partite entanglement, defining features of the multi-particle HOM effect. Our technique offers the potential for scaling to much larger numbers, presenting promising applications in quantum information with indistinguishable particles and Heisenberg-limited atom interferometry.

arXiv:2504.02691 [quant-ph]

(or arXiv:2504.02691v2 [quant-ph] for this version)

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2504.02691 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-026-03302-7 Focus to learn more DOI(s) linking to related resources

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