Unwanted couplings can induce amplification in quantum memories despite negligible apparent noise

Theoretical quantum memory design often involves selectively focusing on certain energy levels to mimic an ideal Λ configuration, a common approach that may unintentionally overlook the impact of neighboring levels or undesired couplings. While this simplification may be justified in certain protocols or platforms, it can significantly distort the achievable memory performance. Through numerical semiclassical analysis, we show that the presence of unwanted energy levels and undesired couplings in an absorptive memory based on a nitrogen-vacancy center can significantly amplify the signal, resulting in memory efficiencies exceeding unity, a clear indication of unwanted noise at the quantum level. Strikingly, this effect occurs even when the apparent noise, i.e., output in the absence of an input field, is negligible. We then generalize our results using semianalytical estimations to analyze this amplification, and propose a strategy to reduce its effect. Our findings extend to memory platforms beyond nitrogen-vacancy centers; as an example, we also analyze a cavity-based rubidium memory that experiences the same issue.