title: Polarization Drift Channel Model for Coherent Fibre-Optic Systems.
abstract: A theoretical framework is introduced to model the dynamical changes of the state of polarization during transmission in coherent fibre-optic systems. The model generalizes the one-dimensional phase noise random walk to higher dimensions, accounting for random polarization drifts, emulating a random walk on the Poincaré sphere, which has been successfully verified using experimental data. The model is described in the Jones, Stokes and real four-dimensional formalisms, and the mapping between them is derived. Such a model will be increasingly important in simulating and optimizing future systems, where polarization-multiplexed transmission and sophisticated digital signal processing will be natural parts. The proposed polarization drift model is the first of its kind as prior work either models polarization drift as a deterministic process or focuses on polarization-mode dispersion in systems where the state of polarization does not affect the receiver performance. We expect the model to be useful in a wide-range of photonics applications where stochastic polarization fluctuation is an issue.
authors.affiliation: Chalmers University of Technology, Department of Signals and Systems, SE-41296 Gothenburg, Sweden.
authors.forename: Cristian B
authors.initials: CB
authors.lastname: Czegledi
authors.affiliation: Chalmers University of Technology, Department of Microtechnology and Nanoscience, SE-41296 Gothenburg, Sweden.
authors.forename: Magnus
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Karlsson
authors.affiliation: Chalmers University of Technology, Department of Signals and Systems, SE-41296 Gothenburg, Sweden.
authors.forename: Erik
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Agrell
authors.affiliation: Chalmers University of Technology, Department of Microtechnology and Nanoscience, SE-41296 Gothenburg, Sweden.
authors.forename: Pontus
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Johannisson