The two-photon temporal coincidence detection amplitude obeys a pair of equations identical to those of classical partially coherent plane-wave pulses propagating in linearly dispersive media. These equations are also the same as the paraxial Wolf equations, for both the two-photon spatial probability amplitude and the cross-spectral density function. Therefore, a fourfold analogy between space and time, as well as between quantum entanglement and partial coherence, arises. In accordance to this, we predict nonlocal interference structures in a fourth-order interferometric configuration with classical partially coherent pulses under the assumption of Gaussian statistics. As an example, we present the classical temporal counterpart of the ghost diffraction phenomenon. Our work suggests that some time-domain entanglement phenomena that hitherto were considered as uniquely quantum can be mimicked by conventional partially coherent light pulses.

• Received 7 September 2007

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.77.043811