Solitons with Gaussian tails in dispersion-managed communication systems using gratings

We examine the transmission of optical pulses in fibre communication systems with dispersion management. It is shown that solitons with Gaussian tails may be formed by the adoption of gratings to periodically compensate a pulse chirp. Fast decaying Gaussian tails allow us to provide denser information packing in comparison with sech-type soliton transmission. The discovered pulse is an attractive candidate for use as information carrier in optical transmission systems with an ultra-large capacity of around 100 Gbit/s. It is shown that a variational method can be effectively used to describe the dynamics of the breathing soliton. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.