



01505nas a2200157   4500008004100000245008800041210006900129260001300198490000700211520099600218100002501214700001601239700002301255700002501278856004401303       2007                        eng d00aPhoton storage in Lambda-type optically dense atomic media. II.  Free-space model
0 aPhoton storage in Lambdatype optically dense atomic media II Fre  c2007/9/70 v763 a  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 Lambda-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 Lambda 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., Phys. Rev. A 76, 033804 (2007)].
1 aGorshkov, Alexey, V.1 aAndre, Axel1 aLukin, Mikhail, D.1 aSorensen, Anders, S.  uhttp://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0612083v2