  We present a detailed theoretical description of the generation of stationary
light pulses by standing wave electromagnetically induced transparency in media
comprised of stationary atoms. We show that, contrary to thermal gas media, the
achievable storage times are limited only by the ground state dephasing rate of
the atoms, making such media ideally suited for nonlinear optical interactions
between stored pulses. Furthermore, we find significant quantitative and
qualitative differences between the two types of media, which are important for
quantum information processing schemes involving stationary light pulses.
