Hui successfully defended his PhD proposal on September 3, 2009

TITLE:
The high-order quantum coherence of thermal light

ABSTRACT:
Fifty years ago, Hanbury Brown and Twiss (HBT) discovered a nontrivial intensity‐intensity correlation that the thermal light has a twice chance of being measured by two individual photo‐detectors within its coherence volume. This HBT effect was finally interpreted as intensity fluctuation. However, with careful theoretical and experimental studies, we found that intensity fluctuation faces difficulty. Recently, our theoretical and experimental works have provided some clear evidences. Moreover, we propose a serial of further works, in order to explicitly demonstrate that the HBT effect has to be described quantum mechanically as two‐photon interference.