Higher Order Polarization-Mode Dispersion in the Presence of Polarization-Dependent Loss in Optical Fiber Systems

The statistics of first- and second-order polarization-mode dispersion and statistical dependencies between corresponding quantities are investigated with regard to fiber-optic links with polarization-dependent loss (PDL). We show the occurrence of an infinite depolarization rate of the principal states of polarization (PSPs) caused by an abrupt interchange of the two PSPs with a probability that grows with the global PDL. We finally discuss the influence of the frequency resolution of measurement and simulation methods on the depolarization results