Polarization-multiplexed nonlinear inverse synthesis with standard and reduced-complexity NFT processing

In this work, we study the performance of polarization division multiplexing nonlinear inverse synthesis transmission schemes for fiber-optic communications, expected to have reduced nonlinearity impact. Our technique exploits the integrability of the Manakov equation—the master model for dual-polarization signal propagation in a single mode fiber—and employs nonlinear Fourier transform (NFT) based signal processing. First, we generalize some algorithms for the NFT computation to the two- and multicomponent case. Then, we demonstrate that modulating information on both polarizations doubles the channel information rate with a negligible performance degradation. Moreover, we introduce a novel dual-polarization transmission scheme with reduced complexity which separately processes each polarization component and can also provide a performance improvement in some practical scenarios.