Fast inverse nonlinear Fourier transform for generating multi-solitons in optical fiber

The achievable data rates of current fiber-optic wavelength-division-multiplexing (WDM) systems are limited by nonlinear interactions between different subchannels. Recently, it was thus proposed to replace the conventional Fourier transform in WDM systems with an appropriately defined nonlinear Fourier transform (NFT). The computational complexity of NFTs is a topic of current research. In this paper, a fast inverse NFT algorithm for the important special case of multi-solitonic signals is presented. The algorithm requires only O(Dlog² D) floating point operations to compute D samples of a multi-soliton. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first algorithm for this problem with log²-linear complexity. The paper also includes a many-samples analysis of the generated nonlinear Fourier spectra.