Influence of polarization-mode dispersion on soliton interaction in dispersion-managed soliton transmission systems

Summary form only given. Recent studies of dispersion-managed (DM) solitons have shown that the DM soliton pulse can withstand the pulse broadening due to the polarization-mode dispersion (PMD), and that the single pulse can propagate stably even under the influence of the PMD. In most of DM soliton systems, however, the transmission distance is limited by the soliton interaction, and hence the behavior of the soliton interaction under the influence of the PMD seems to be rather important. In this paper, we numerically investigate the influence of the PMD on the soliton interaction. We show that the PMD could either enhance or reduce the soliton interaction depending on the distribution of the fiber birefringence, and that,the transmission performance is improved by the PMD in certain cases.