Impact of timing mismatch in multicarrier spectral-slicing transmission system using single coherent receiver

In this paper, we investigate the impact of timing mismatch among different sub-bands on the performance of a multicarrier spectral-slicing OFDM system with a single coherent receiver, both in the back-to-back configuration and long-distance fiber transmission. Two different timing mismatch models, namely linear timing error and Gaussian timing error, are introduced and investigated. Furthermore, the trade-off between nonlinear performance penalty and timing mismatch induced performance penalty under the impact of the number of subcarriers is investigated for the first time.