Solid State and Optics Seminar

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

1:00 p.m.

107 Mason Lab

"The Atomic Hanbury Brown and Twiss Effect: A step in quantum atom optics"

Prof. Alain Aspect,
Institut d'Optique, Orsay University,
France

Distinguished Lecturer in Quantum Information Physics

Abstract

Fifty years ago, R. Hanbury Brown and R.Q. Twiss invented a new method for measuring the diameter of stars, based on the effect of "photon bunching." Their publication prompted a hot controversy about the understanding of their effect: how could photons emitted by opposite edges of a star exhibit bunching, ie lack of statistical independence? The confusion increased yet more when it was realised that laser light does NOT exhibit bunching, and it is partly for clarifying these points that R Glauber developped the formalism of modern quantum optics. The HB&T effect has more recently been observed with atoms, and we will present these recent experiments in the light of the discussions about photons, focusing on our recent experiments at Institut d'Optique.

Host: Michel Devoret