Polarization evolution in a 107-km dispersion-managed recirculating loop

Summary form only given. Recirculating loops are simple and efficient models for studying long-haul transmission systems. Therefore it is important to understand the polarization evolution inside loop to predict system performance and to develop accurate theoretical models. The signal's polarization evolution in a recirculating loop propagating standard solitons with polarization division multiplexing (PDM) has been studied theoretically and experimentally. However, dispersion-managed solitons systems have a significantly different dynamic evolution. In particular, the ASE noise build-up rather than timing jitter limits the transmission distance. In our studies, we followed the polarization evolution of the noise as well as the signal. A reduced model was used to simulate the dynamics of the polarization evolution. Our studies of the noise dynamics have implications for non-solitons systems as well.