Mode Distinguishability in Multi-photon Interference

The Hong–Ou–Mandel (HOM) effect is a quintessential process in quantum information technologies and quantum optics. We investigate multi-photon interference by developing a model for the simultaneous characterization of polarization and spectro-temporal mode mismatch on coincidence probabilities, including realistic device imperfections. We further analyze coherent-state interference as a function of source intensity and apply our framework to quantum networking tasks such as entanglement swapping, QKD, quantum sensing, and photonic quantum computing.