Coherent Diffusion of Slow Light

I will present the effect of thermal atomic motion on slow light using electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). A direct consequence of the diffusion of atoms is the coherent diffusion of a stored image throughout the storage duration. The complex amplitude undergoes diffusion and therefore interference occurs. Specifically, high-order Gaussian transverse-modes are topologically stable and self-similar upon storage. During the slow propagation of the probe in the medium, the combined light-matter excitation exhibits both diffraction and diffusion-like behavior