Manipulation of slow light with orbital angular momentum in cold atomic gases

We study the propagation of a weak pulse of slow light in a cloud of cold atoms controlled by two additional laser beams of larger intensity in a tripod configuration of the light-matter coupling. We consider a case where one of the control beams has an optical vortex and thus has a zero intensity at the center. The presence of the second control beams restores adiabaticity in the propagation of the probe beam. This makes it possible to exchange the optical vortex between the control and probe fields during the storage. We analyze conditions for the vortex of the control beam to be transferred efficiently to the restored probe beam.