ON THE DESCRIPTION OF N-SOLITON INTERACTION IN OPTICAL FIBERS

We show that the interaction of a finite number of solitons propagatin g in an optical fiber may be reasonably described by a generalized qua siparticle approach. The results for the positions of the pulses agree well with the numerical findings, at least up to the point of the sma llest separation, even for pulses with slightly different amplitudes. It turns out that for trains with a large number of out-of-phase pulse s the positions may be reasonably described by the Toda lattice equati on although their derivation is mathematically not consistent.