Coherent control of light transport in a dense and disordered atomic   ensemble
  Light transport in a dense and disordered cold atomic ensemble, where the cooperation of atomic dipoles essentially modifies their coupling with the radiation modes, offers an alternative approach to light-matter interfacing protocols. Here, we show how the cooperativity and quasi-static dipole interaction affect the process of light propagation under the conditions of electromagnetically-induced transparency (EIT). We perform comparative analysis of the self-consistent approach with ab-initio microscopic calculations and emphasize the role of the interatomic interaction in the dipoles' dynamics. Our results show that in such a dense and strongly disordered system the EIT-based light storage protocol stays relatively insensitive to configuration variations and can be obtained with essentially less atoms than it is normally needed for dilute configurations. 
A.S. Sheremet, D.F. Kornovan, L.V. Gerasimov, B. Gouraud, J. Laurat,   D.V. Kupriyanov
quant-ph