Abstract-Different aspects of probabilistic shaping for a multi-span optical communication system are studied. First, a numerical analysis of the additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel investigates the effect of using a small number of input probability mass functions (PMFs) for a range of signalto-noise ratios (SNRs), instead of optimizing the constellation shaping for each SNR. It is shown that if a small penalty of at most 0.1 dB SNR to the full shaping gain is acceptable, just two shaped PMFs are required per quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) over a large SNR range. For a multi-span wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) optical fiber system with 64QAM input, it is shown that just one PMF is required to achieve large gains over uniform input for distances from 1,400 km to 3,000 km. Using recently developed theoretical models that extend the Gaussian noise (GN) model and fullfield split-step simulations, we illustrate the ramifications of probabilistic shaping on the effective SNR after fiber propagation. Our results show that, for a fixed average optical launch power, a shaping gain is obtained for the noise contributions from fiber amplifiers and modulation-independent nonlinear interference (NLI), whereas shaping simultaneously causes a penalty as it leads to an increased NLI. However, this nonlinear shaping loss is found to have a relatively minor impact, and optimizing the shaped PMF with a modulation-dependent GN model confirms that the PMF found for AWGN is also a good choice for a multispan fiber system.

The FEC limit paradigm is the prevalent practice for designing optical communication systems to attain a certain bit-error rate (BER) without forward error correction (FEC). This practice assumes that there is an FEC code that will reduce the BER after decoding to the desired level. In this paper, we challenge this practice and show that the concept of a channel-independent FEC limit is invalid for soft-decision bitwise decoding. It is shown that for low code rates and high order modulation formats, the use of the soft FEC limit paradigm can underestimate the spectral efficiencies by up to 20%. A better predictor for the BER after decoding is the generalized mutual information, which is shown to give consistent post-FEC BER predictions across different channel conditions and modulation formats. Extensive optical full-field simulations and experiments are carried out in both the linear and nonlinear transmission regimes to confirm the theoretical analysis.

In this paper, achievable information rates (AIR) for fiber optical communications are discussed. It is shown that AIRs such as the mutual information and generalized mutual information are good design metrics for coded optical systems. The theoretical predictions of AIRs are compared to the performance of modern codes including low-parity density check (LDPC) and polar codes. Two different computation methods for these AIRs are also discussed: Monte-Carlo integration and Gauss-Hermite quadrature. Closed-form ready-to-use approximations for such computations are provided for arbitrary constellations and the multidimensional AWGN channel. The computation of AIRs in optical experiments and simulations is also discussed.

The channel capacity of a nonlinear, dispersive fiberoptic link is revisited. To this end, the popular Gaussian noise (GN) model is extended with a parameter to account for the finite memory of realistic fiber channels. This finite-memory model is harder to analyze mathematically but, in contrast to previous models, it is valid also for nonstationary or heavy-tailed input signals. For uncoded transmission and standard modulation formats, the new model gives the same results as the regular GN model when the memory of the channel is about 10 symbols or more. These results confirm previous results that the GN model is accurate for uncoded transmission. However, when coding is considered, the results obtained using the finite-memory model are very different from those obtained by previous models, even when the channel memory is large. In particular, the peaky behavior of the channel capacity, which has been reported for numerous nonlinear channel models, appears to be an artifact of applying models derived for independent input in a coded (i.e., dependent) scenario.

Abstract-Coded modulation (CM) is the combination of forward error correction (FEC) and multilevel constellations. Coherent optical communication systems result in a four-dimensional (4D) signal space, which naturally leads to 4D-CM transceivers. A practically attractive design paradigm is to use a bit-wise decoder, where the detection process is (suboptimally) separated into two steps: soft-decision demapping followed by binary decoding. In this paper, bit-wise decoders are studied from an information-theoretic viewpoint. 4D constellations with up to 4096 constellation points are considered. Metrics to predict the post-FEC bit-error rate (BER) of bit-wise decoders are analyzed. The mutual information is shown to fail at predicting the post-FEC BER of bit-wise decoders and the so-called generalized mutual information is shown to be a much more robust metric. For the suboptimal scheme under consideration, it is also shown that constellations that transmit and receive information in each polarization and quadrature independently (e.g., PM-QPSK, PM-16QAM, and PM-64QAM) outperform the best 4D constellations designed for uncoded transmission. Theoretical gains are as high as 4 dB, which are then validated via numerical simulations of low-density parity check codes.

Probabilistic shaping based on constant composition distribution matching (CCDM) has received considerable attention as a way to increase the capacity of fiber optical communication systems. CCDM suffers from significant rate loss at short blocklengths and requires long blocklengths to achieve high shaping gain, which makes its implementation very challenging. In this paper, we propose to use enumerative sphere shaping (ESS) and investigate its performance for the nonlinear fiber optical channel. ESS has lower rate loss than CCDM at the same shaping rate, which makes it a suitable candidate to be implemented in real-time high-speed optical systems. In this paper, we first show that finite blocklength ESS and CCDM exhibit higher effective signal-to-noise ratio than their infinite blocklength counterparts. These results show that for the nonlinear fiber optical channel, large blocklengths should be avoided. We then show that for a 400 Gb/s dual-polarization 64-QAM WDM transmission system, ESS with short blocklengths outperforms both uniform signaling and CCDM. Gains in terms of both bit-metric decoding rate and bit-error rate are presented. ESS with a blocklength of 200 is shown to provide an extension reach of about 200 km in comparison with CCDM with the same blocklength. The obtained reach increase of ESS with a blocklength of 200 over uniform signaling is approximately 450 km (approximately 19%).

In this paper we formally analyze the interleaver and code design for QAM-based BICM transmissions using the binary reflected Gray code. We develop analytical bounds on the bit error rate and we use them to predict the performance of BICM when unequal error protection (UEP) is introduced by the constellation labeling. Based on these bounds the optimum design of interleaver and code is found, and numerical results for representative configurations are presented. When the new design is used, the improvements may reach 2 dB, and they are obtained without complexity increase. We also introduce the concept of generalized optimum distance spectrum convolutional codes, which are the optimum codes for this scenario. Index TermsBICM, interleaver design, multiple interleaver, optimum distance spectrum codes, QAM, UEP.

A note on versions:The version presented in WRAP is the published version, or, version of record, and may be cited as it appears here. C. Rasmussen and S. Watanabe, "Coherent reception and 126 GHz bandwidth digital signal processing of CO-OFDM superchannel generated by fiber frequency conversion," in Tech.