Vector solitons and dispersive waves in birefringent optical fibers

We develop a general formalism for investigating the evolution of arbitrarily polarized short pulses inside a birefringent optical fiber. We use it to numerically study the formation of a dispersive wave inside fibers exhibiting medium to high birefringence when a short optical pulse is launched such that it propagates as a vector soliton. We also investigate the polarization evolution of both the vector soliton and dispersive wave generated by it. The results show that, while the polarization of the dispersive wave is controlled by linear birefringence of the fiber, polarization of the vector soliton is affected considerably by the nonlinear birefringence. The coupled nonlinear equations that we solve include both the Raman and Kerr nonlinearities. Moreover, they include the cross-polarization Raman terms that couple the orthogonally polarized components of the vector soliton. Polarization of the vector soliton is found to be affected considerably by the Raman nonlinearity in the case of medium birefringence.