Revealing bosonic exchange symmetry in a two-photon temporal wave function

Yefeng Mei; Yue Jiang; Shengwang Du

doi:10.1103/sq4j-53jr

Revealing bosonic exchange symmetry in a two-photon temporal wave function

Yefeng Mei ^1,*, Yue Jiang ^2,*, and Shengwang Du ^3,4,5,†

¹Department of Physics and Astronomy, Washington State University, Pullman, Washington 99164, USA
²Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260, USA
³Elmore Family School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907, USA
⁴Department of Physics and Astronomy, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907, USA
⁵Purdue Quantum Science and Engineering Institute, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907, USA

^*These authors contributed equally to this work.
^†Contact author: dusw@purdue.edu

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Phys. Rev. A 113, 013721 – Published 13 January, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/sq4j-53jr

Abstract

The wave function of two identical bosons remains invariant under particle exchange—a fundamental quantum symmetry that underlies Bose-Einstein statistics. We report the experimental observation of bosonic exchange symmetry in the temporal wave function of photon pairs generated via spontaneous four-wave mixing in a three-level cold atomic ensemble. The measured two-photon temporal correlations show excellent agreement with theoretical predictions based on symmetrized bosonic wave functions. In addition, we perform time-resolved two-photon interference to reconstruct the complex temporal wave function. Both the amplitude and phase profiles exhibit clear symmetry under photon exchange, providing a confirmation of bosonic exchange symmetry in the time domain.

Physical Review A

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Revealing bosonic exchange symmetry in a two-photon temporal wave function

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Revealing bosonic exchange symmetry in a two-photon temporal wave function

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