Abstract
This paper considers the transmission of information over integrable听 channels , a class of (mainly nonlinear )听 channels 听described by a Lax operator-pair. For such听 channels , the听 nonlinear 听 Fourier transform , a powerful tool in soliton theory and exactly solvable models, plays the same role in 鈥渄iagonalizing鈥 the听 channel 听that the ordinary听 Fourier 听 transform 听plays for linear convolutional channels . A transmission strategy encoding information in the听 nonlinear 听 Fourier 听spectrum, termed nonlinear 听frequency-division multiplexing, is proposed for integrable听 channels 听that is the听 nonlinear analogue of orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing commonly used in linear听 channels . A central and motivating example is fiber-optic data transmission, for which the proposed transmission technique deals with both dispersion and nonlinearity directly and unconditionally without the need for dispersion or nonlinearity compensation methods.