Intrachannel pulse interactions in dispersion-managed transmission systems: timing shifts

Nonlinear intrachannel interactions responsible for timing shifts in a transmission system with strong periodic dispersion management are investigated. Formulas describing the evolution of the timing shift are obtained for general bit patterns. When average dispersion is negligible, the timing shift is shown to grow linearly in distance in a system with loss and lumped amplification, whereas in a lossless system the timing shift is sufficiently small at every chirp-free point. The analysis agrees with direct numerical simulations. (C) 2001 Optical Society of America.