Soliton collisions in dispersion-managed WDM systems

Abstract

We show that collision-induced frequency shifts in WDM soliton transmission systems are reduced with increasing dispersion management. We predict new resonances in the collision dynamics, due to the relative motion induced by the dispersion map. In this paper, we assess the performance of dispersion management in reducing the main source of impairments in WDM soliton transmission, namely, collision-induced timing jitter. We calculate the residual frequency shifts, due to two-soliton collisions, analytically and numerically, and predict that the frequency shifts are strongly reduced with increasing dispersion management. In addition, we demonstrate the existence of new resonances in the soliton collision dynamics, which should be taken into account for optimal system design and performance.