Crespi Andrea, Sansoni Linda, Della Valle Giuseppe, Ciamei Alessio, Ramponi Roberta, Sciarrino Fabio, Mataloni Paolo, Longhi Stefano, Osellame Roberto
Istituto di Fotonica e Nanotecnologie, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Piazza Leonardo da Vinci 32, I-20133 Milano, Italy.
Dipartimento di Fisica, Sapienza Università di Roma, Piazzale Aldo Moro 5, I-00185 Roma, Italy.
Phys Rev Lett. 2015 Mar 6;114(9):090201. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.114.090201. Epub 2015 Mar 2.
Quantum mechanical decay, Fano interference, and bound states with energy in the continuum are ubiquitous phenomena in different areas of physics. Here we experimentally demonstrate that particle statistics strongly affects quantum mechanical decay in a multiparticle system. By considering propagation of two-photon states in engineered photonic lattices, we simulate quantum decay of two noninteracting particles in a multilevel Fano-Anderson model. Remarkably, when the system sustains a bound state in the continuum, fractional decay is observed for bosonic particles, but not for fermionic ones. Complete decay in the fermionic case arises because of the Pauli exclusion principle, which forbids the bound state to be occupied by the two fermions. Our experiment indicates that particle statistics can tune many-body quantum decay from fractional to complete.
量子力学衰变、法诺干涉以及连续谱中具有能量的束缚态是物理学不同领域中普遍存在的现象。在此，我们通过实验证明粒子统计特性会强烈影响多粒子系统中的量子力学衰变。通过考虑双光子态在人工设计的光子晶格中的传播，我们在多能级法诺 - 安德森模型中模拟了两个非相互作用粒子的量子衰变。值得注意的是，当系统在连续谱中存在束缚态时，对于玻色子粒子观察到分数衰变，而费米子粒子则没有。在费米子情况下出现完全衰变是由于泡利不相容原理，该原理禁止两个费米子占据束缚态。我们的实验表明，粒子统计特性可以将多体量子衰变从分数衰变调节为完全衰变。
