TEP Seminar - Max Ehrhardt

The number of geometric dimensions of a physical system significantly impacts its fundamental characteristics. However, experiments are limited to one temporal and three spatial dimensions. To overcome these limitations, the present work explores the interplay between spatial dimensions and the synthetic polarization dimension in photonic waveguides to extend the number of experimentally accessible dimensions. The additional polarization dimension adds versatile properties to the quantum interference of photons in complex graphs, non-Hermitian and topological quantum systems that pave the way towards the next generation of photonic quantum technologies: Exploring the synthetic dimension with photon pairs induces symmetries in complex networks, that enable exploiting exchange phases of photons as a functional element to control quantum interference. Furthermore, observation-dependent quantum interference with tailored dissipation as well as quantum interference of topological origin with inherent robustness become accessible through the synthetic polarization dimension.