Multicanonical determination of the symbol error ratio of WDM polarization multiplexed QPSK systems

The multicanonical method is applied to the calculation of the symbol error ratio (SER) as a function of the optical signal to noise ratio (OSNR) at the receiver for a polarization multiplexed quadrature phase shift keying (PM-QPSK) wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) system. We improve upon previous calculations by including polarization mode dispersion (PMD) and subsequently verifying the numerical accuracy of our calculations. Our numerical studies demonstrate that acceptable accuracy can be achieved even when advancing the polarization through the fiber with relatively large propagation step lengths. © 2014 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Munich/Boston.