The Hong Ou and Mandel effect:
a landmark in the second quantum revolution
Alain Aspect, Institut d’Optique, Palaiseau, France
The second quantum revolution is based on entanglement, discovered by Einstein and Schrödinger in 1935, and whose extraordinary character has been directly demonstrated by the violations of Bell’s inequalities. Although discovered in 1986, i.e., after Bell’s inequalities tests, the HOM effect is a conceptually simpler evidence of entanglement.
At Institut d’Optique, we are currently revisiting important landmarks of quantum optics using atoms rather than photons, and we have recently observed the HOM effect with ultra-cold atoms.
After describing the HOM effect and explaining its importance in the development of modern quantum optics, I will describe our recent experiments, and evoke our projects of Bell’s inequalities tests with entangled atoms.