Fidelity of photon propagation in electromagnetically induced transparency in the presence of four-wave mixing

We study the effects of the four-wave mixing (4WM) in a quantum memory scheme based on electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). We treat the problem of field propagation on the quantum mechanical level, which allows us to calculate the fidelity for propagation for a quantum light pulse such as a single photon. While 4WM can be beneficial for classical, all-optical information storage, the quantum noise associated with the signal amplification and idler generation is in general detrimental for a quantum memory. We identify a range of parameters where 4WM makes a single photon quantum memory impossible.