Figure 1

Schematics of the experimental apparatus. A typical acquisition run, with a sequence of peaks, each corresponding to a cavity round-trip, is also shown.Reuse & Permissions

Figure 2

Purity and fidelity versus the number of double round-trips for three different input polarization states (left without BB, right with BB) when decoherence is due only to the plane mirrors (no SB compensator included). Horizontal polarization $H$ is well preserved even without BB. On the contrary, if BB is not applied, the states $D$ and $R$ quickly decay to the fully mixed state (purity and fidelity equal to $1/2$). The fitting curve has been obtained by considering a Gaussian spectrum for the pulse (see text). When BB is applied, both purity and fidelity remain very close to 1 for the whole duration of the photon storage in the cavity. Dashed lines fitting curves are obtained by numerical simulation with parameters ${\sigma }_{\varphi }^{\mathrm{est}}=8.39\times {10}^{-2}\mathrm{rad}$ and ${\varphi }_0=0.2182\mathrm{rad}$.Reuse & Permissions

Figure 3

Purity and fidelity, averaged over the whole Bloch sphere, for generic decoherence, for different phase angles, $\theta$, of the SB compensator (left without BB, right with BB). For each orientation of the decoherence-axis the output purity and fidelity with BB are significantly higher than the corresponding value without BB. Dashed lines fitting curves obtained by numerical simulation with ${\sigma }_{\varphi }^{\mathrm{est}}=8.39\times {10}^{-2}\mathrm{rad}$ and ${\varphi }_0=0.2182\mathrm{rad}$, as in Fig. 2.Reuse & Permissions