Multichannel soliton transmission and pulse shepherding in bit-parallel-wavelength optical fiber links

We study basic principles of the bit-parallel-wavelength (BPW) pulse transmission in multichannel single-mode optical fiber links for high-performance computer networks. We develop a theory of the pulse shepherding effect that allows simultaneous propagation of pulses in parallel bit slots by binding them into a multicomponent BPW soliton. We describe families of the BPW solitons and bifurcation cascades in a system of N incoherently coupled nonlinear Schrödinger equations that model the multichannel multiwavelength transmission in a single-mode optical fiber. We demonstrate high robustness of the composite BPW solitons, due to their underlying linear stability, to a moderate pulse walkoff.