Nonlocal Pancharatnam phase in two-photon interferometry

Abstract

We propose a polarized intensity interferometry experiment, which measures the nonlocal Pancharatnam phase acquired by a pair of Hanbury-Brown–Twiss photons. The setup involves two polarized thermal sources illuminating two polarized detectors. Varying the relative polarization angle of the detectors introduces a two-photon geometric phase. Local measurements at either detector do not reveal the effects of the phase, which is an optical analog of the multiparticle Aharonov-Bohm effect. The geometric phase sheds light on the three-slit experiment and suggests ways of tuning entanglement