Statistical property of intra-channel four-wave mixing in RZ-DPSK transmission systems

The statistical property of intra-channel four-wave-mixing (IFWM) is studied numerically for return-to-zero differential-phase-shift keying transmission. The distributions of IFWM-induced pulse power and phase fluctuations depend on the relative strength of pulse broadening and nonlinear interactions, which can be characterized with a dimensionless parameter. We thus offer a general criterion to understand the stochastic nature of IFWM effect.