Modeling nonlinear lightwave systems

Summary form only given. The increasingly widespread use of erbium-doped optical fiber amplifiers in the 1990's has revolutionized optical fiber communications, making it possible to transmit hundreds of Gbit/s over thousands of kilometers without electronic repeaters. Because the effects of nonlinearity accumulate over long distances in modern-day systems-interacting all the while with spontaneous emission noise, chromatic dispersion, and the effects of randomly varying birefringence-modeling these systems accurately and efficiently is a significant challenge. A variety of techniques have evolved to meet this challenge. In this tutorial, I will describe the advantages and disadvantages of the principle techniques in current use, including Fourier mode coupling techniques, split-step computational methods, multiple-scale techniques, and empirical methods. No technique is universally applicable, and most are useful in some parameter regime. I will outline the contexts in which each of these techniques is of practical use in designing optical fiber communication systems.