APPLICATION OF THE MANAKOV-PMD EQUATION TO STUDIES OF SIGNAL PROPAGATION IN OPTICAL FIBERS WITH RANDOMLY VARYING BIREFRINGENCE

We report here on our investigations of the Manakov-polarization mode dispersion (PMD) equation which can be used to model both nonreturn-to -zero (NRZ) and soliton signal propagation in optical fibers with rand omly varying birefringence. We review the derivation of the Manakov-PM D equation from the coupled nonlinear Schrodinger equation, and we dis cuss the physical meaning of its terms, We discuss our numerical appro ach for solving this equation, and we apply this approach to both NRZ and soliton propagation, We show by comparison with the coupled nonlin ear Schrodinger equation, integrated with steps that are short enough to follow the detailed polarization evolution, that our approach is or ders of magnitude faster with no loss of accuracy, Finally, we compare our approach to the widely used coarse-step method and demonstrate-th at the coarse-step method is both efficient and valid.