Anomalous bunching of nearly indistinguishable bosons

The commonly assumed straight link between boson bunching and particle indistinguishability in quantum interferometry has recently been challenged [Nat. Photon. 17, 702 (2023)]. Exploiting the connection between quantum optical interferences and matrix permanents, it appeared that bunching effects may arise that exceed the expected limit of fully indistinguishable particles by injecting peculiar polarization states of partially distinguishable photons in some interferometers. Surprisingly, all states giving rise to such an anomalous bunching were found to be far from the state of fully indistinguishable particles, raising the question of whether this intriguing phenomenon might even possibly exist with nearly indistinguishable particles. Here, we answer this question positively by relating it to a mathematical conjecture on matrix permanents dating from 1986, whose physical interpretation had not yet been unveiled. Using a recently found counterexample to this conjecture, we demonstrate that there is an optical interferometer involving 8 photons in 10 modes such that the probability that all photons bunch into two output modes can be enhanced by suitably perturbing the state of all photons having the same polarization. Such a finding reflects still another - even less expected - facet of anomalous boson bunching.