In multipartide quantum interference, bosons show rather generally the tendency to bunch together, while fermions cannot. This behavior, which is rooted in the different statistics of the particles, results in a higher coincidence rate P for fermions than for bosons, i.e., P-(boos) < P-(ferm). However, in lossy systems, such a general rule can be violated because bosons can avoid lossy regions. Here it is shown that, in a rather general optical system showing passive parity-time (PT) symmetry, at the PT symmetry breaking phase transition point, the coincidence probabilities for bosons and fermions are equalized, while in the broken PT phase, the reversal P-(bos) > P-(ferm) is observed. Such effect is exemplified by considering the passive PT-symmetric optical directional coupler. (C) 2020 Optical Society of America
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