AbstractHong-Ou-Mandel (HOM) effect is known to be one of the main phenomena in quantum optics. It is believed that the effect occurs when two identical single-photon waves enter a 1:1 beam splitter, one in each input port. When the photons are identical, they will extinguish each other. In this work, it is shown that these fundamental provisions of the HOM interference may not always be fulfilled. One of the main elements of the HOM interferometer is the beam splitter, which has its own coefficients of reflection $$R = 1/2$$
R
=
1
/
2
and transmission $$ T = 1/2 $$
T
=
1
/
2
. Here we consider the general mechanism of the interaction of two photons in a beam splitter, which shows that in the HOM theory of the effect it is necessary to know (including when planning the experiment) not only $$ R = 1/2 $$
R
=
1
/
2
and $$ T = 1/2 $$
T
=
1
/
2
, but also their root-mean-square fluctuations $$ \Delta R ^ 2, \Delta T ^ 2 $$
Δ
R
2
,
Δ
T
2
, which arise due to the dependence of $$R = R(\omega _1, \omega _2) $$
R
=
R
(
ω
1
,
ω
2
)
and $$ T = T (\omega _1, \omega _2) $$
T
=
T
(
ω
1
,
ω
2
)
on the frequencies where $$\omega _1, \omega _2$$
ω
1
,
ω
2
are the frequencies of the first and second photons, respectively. Under certain conditions, specifically when the dependence of the fluctuations $$ \Delta R^2 $$
Δ
R
2
and $$ \Delta T^2 $$
Δ
T
2
can be neglected and $$ R=T=1/2 $$
R
=
T
=
1
/
2
is chosen, the developed theory coincides with previously known results.
Harnessing temporal modes for multi-photon quantum information processing based on integrated optics
