- #1
yosofun
- 14
- 0
The Hanbury Brown Twiss effect, aka the photon bunching effect, states that photons (from a thermal or coherent source) arrive in pairs instead of individually.
The experimental setup consists of having a source go through a 50-50 beam splitter, where one path goes through a variable time delay.
It is found that for no time delay, the intensity is twice as that for significant time delay (i.e., greater than coherence time). This implies that photons arrive in pairs rather than individually.
Now, my question: what happens if the photons are split in more than 2 ways. Would the intensity be n times for n splits? Would this imply that photons (from thermal/coherent sources) are actually molecules?
The experimental setup consists of having a source go through a 50-50 beam splitter, where one path goes through a variable time delay.
It is found that for no time delay, the intensity is twice as that for significant time delay (i.e., greater than coherence time). This implies that photons arrive in pairs rather than individually.
Now, my question: what happens if the photons are split in more than 2 ways. Would the intensity be n times for n splits? Would this imply that photons (from thermal/coherent sources) are actually molecules?