Transfer of photon number statistics from coupling light to stored and retrieved probe light.

We report on the transfer of statistical characteristics from writing and reading coupling light to stored and retrieved probe light pulses in a Λ-type electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) scheme based on the 5S(1/2)-5P(1/2) transition of (87)Rb atoms. When the coherent probe laser pulse was stored in the EIT medium using the pseudo-thermal coupling light, the characteristics of the pseudo-thermal writing coupling light were transferred to the stored probe laser pulse because of the strong correlation between the probe and coupling light in the EIT medium. The photon number statistics of the retrieved probe light changed from Poisson distribution to Bose-Einstein distribution. Additionally, we measured the change in the properties of the retrieved light pulse due to the photon number statistics of the pseudo-thermal reading coupling light.