2006/12/31 by Alexey V. Gorshkov, Axel Andre, A. André +3 · 7 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Atomic and Subatomic Physics Research #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #Quantum optics and atomic interactions #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreva.76.033805
published as Phys. Rev. A 76, 033805 (2007) · 26 pages, 8 figures. V2: significant changes in presentation, new references, higher resolution of figures
openalex publication_date 2007/09/07 · arxiv created 2007/09/08 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
In a recent paper [Gorshkov et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 123601 (2007)], we presented a universal physical picture for describing a wide range of techniques for storage and retrieval of photon wave packets in \ensuremathΛ-type atomic media in free space, including the adiabatic reduction of the photon group velocity, pulse-propagation control via off-resonant Raman techniques, and photon-echo based techniques. This universal picture produced an optimal control strategy for photon storage and retrieval applicable to all approaches and yielded identical maximum efficiencies for all of them. In the present paper, we present the full details of this analysis as well some of its extensions, including the discussion of the effects of non-degeneracy of the two lower levels of the \ensuremathΛ system. The analysis in the present paper is based on the intuition obtained from the study of photon storage in the cavity model in the preceding paper [Gorshkov et al., previous paper, Phys. Rev. A. 76, 033804 (2007)].