Apparent superluminal advancement of a single photon far beyond its coherence length

We present experimental results relative to superluminal propagation based on a single photon traversing an optical system, called a 4f-system, which acts singularly on the photon's spectral component phases. A single photon is created by a continuous wave (CW) laser light down-conversion process. The introduction of a linear spectral phase function will lead to the shift of the photon peak far beyond the coherence length of the photon itself (an apparent superluminal propagation of the photon). Superluminal group velocity detection is done by interferometric measurement of the temporally shifted photon with its correlated untouched reference. The observed superluminal photon propagation complies with causality. The operation of the optical system allows the origin of the apparent superluminal photon velocity to be elucidated. The experiment foresees a superluminal effect with single-photon wavepackets.