Phase jitter in periodically dispersion-managed optical transmission systems

We investigate the phase jitter in long-haul optical transmission systems with periodic dispersion management and amplification. We compare different dispersion-managed soliton systems and a conventional soliton system having the same pulse width and path-averaged dispersion. Using the variational method, we derive the ordinary differential equations for the pulse parameters perturbed by amplifier noise and hence calculate the phase jitter. We verify the analytical results by numerically solving the nonlinear Schrödinger equation using split-step Fourier algorithm. The results suggest that the reduction of nonlinear phase noise in dispersion-managed soliton systems is possible compared to a conventional soliton system. It is also revealed that the phase noise is enhanced in stronger dispersion-managed systems. We also explore the phase noise effect in dispersion-managed quasi-linear systems and find that phase jitter is mitigated in highly dispersive fibers.