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We report here on our investigations of the Manakov-polarization mode dispersion (PMD) equation which can be used to model both nonreturn-to-zero (NRZ) and soliton signal propagation in optical fibers with randomly varying birefringence. We review the derivation of the Manakov-PMD equation from the coupled nonlinear Schrödinger equation, and we discuss the physical meaning of its terms. We discuss our numerical approach for solving this equation, and we apply this approach to both NRZ and soliton propagation. We show by comparison with the coupled nonlinear Schrödinger equation, integrated with steps that are short enough to follow the detailed polarization evolution, that our approach is orders of magnitude faster with no loss of accuracy. Finally, we compare our approach to the widely used coarse-step method and demonstrate that the coarse-step method is both efficient and valid.

Nonlinear pulse propagation is investigated in the neighborhood of the zero-dispersion wavelength in monomode fibers. When the amplitude is sufficiently large to generate breathers (N > 1 solitons), it is found that the pulses break apart if lambda - lambda(0) is sufficiently small, owing to the third-order dispersion. Here lambda(0) denotes the zero-dispersion wavelength. By contrast, the solitary-wave (N = 1) solution appears well behaved for arbitrary lambda - lambda(0). Implications for communication systems and pulse compression are discussed.

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