Hanbury Brown-Twiss interferometry and second-order correlations of inflaton quanta
- Department of Physics, Theory Division, CERN, 1211 Geneva 23 (Switzerland) and INFN, Section of Milan-Bicocca, 20126 Milan (Italy)
The quantum theory of optical coherence is applied to the scrutiny of the statistical properties of the relic inflaton quanta. After adapting the description of the quantized scalar and tensor modes of the geometry to the analysis of intensity correlations, the normalized degrees of first-order and second-order coherence are computed in the concordance paradigm and are shown to encode faithfully the statistical properties of the initial quantum state. The strongly bunched curvature phonons are not only super-Poissonian but also superchaotic. Testable inequalities are derived in the limit of large-angular scales and can be physically interpreted in the light of the tenets of Hanbury Brown-Twiss interferometry. The quantum mechanical results are compared and contrasted with different situations including the one where intensity correlations are the result of a classical stochastic process. The survival of second-order correlations (not necessarily related to the purity of the initial quantum state) is addressed by defining a generalized ensemble where super-Poissonian statistics is an intrinsic property of the density matrix and turns out to be associated with finite volume effects which are expected to vanish in the thermodynamic limit.
- OSTI ID:
- 21503937
- Journal Information:
- Physical Review. D, Particles Fields, Vol. 83, Issue 2; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.83.023515; (c) 2011 American Institute of Physics; ISSN 0556-2821
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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