Timing jitter owing to intrachannel pulse interactions in dispersion-managed transmission systems

We study interaction-induced timing jitter in single-channel dispersion-man aged return-to-zero ttransmission systems operating at high map strengths. An equation for the frequency and timing shifts of two interacting pulses i s derived by a variational approach. The interaction can be of either an at tractive or a repulsive character, and we show that the resultant timing ji tter can be reduced by proper design of the dispersion map. (C) 2001 Optica l Society of America.