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MON: Monday Contributed Sessions
MON 19: Foundational / Mathematical Aspects – Quantum Optics and Quantum Information
MON 19.1: Talk
Monday, September 8, 2025, 16:30–16:45, ZHG008
Operational theory for photonic circuits: the Hong-Ou-Mandel effect — •Ismael Septembre1, Matthias Kleinmann1, and Martin Plavala2 — 1University of Siegen, Germany — 2University of Hannover, Germany
In this presentation, I will introduce a method that allows studying photonic circuits in a general operational probability theory in position-momentum space (phase space). We use our method to thoroughly study beam splitters. We show that the Hong-Ou-Mandel dip (often cited as a truly quantum effect) is a universal feature of all theories with no state preparation uncertainty, such as classical optics. We then discuss where does the 50% visibility of standard classical optics come from and construct alternative classical theories that reproduce the 100% visibility of quantum optics. Our work paves the way to the study of photonic quantum computing in a generalised setting and the origin of its alleged computing advantage.
Keywords: Quantum optics; General probability theory; Hong-Ou-Mandel; Foundations of quantum physics