Intrachannel pulse interactions in dispersion-managed transmission systems: timing shifts

Nonlinear intrachannel interactions responsible for timing shifts in a tran smission system with strong periodic dispersion management are investigated . Formulas describing the evolution of the timing shift are obtained for ge neral bit patterns. When average dispersion is negligible, the timing shift is shown to grow linearly in distance in a system with loss and lumped amp lification, whereas in a lossless system the timing shift is sufficiently s mall at every chirp-free point. The analysis agrees with direct numerical s imulations. (C) 2001 Optical Society of America.