We study propagation of solitons in optical fibers with randomly varying birefringence which results in polarization mode dispersion. Due to the disorder, solitons emit radiation, i.e., the energy of the solitons is partly transferred into the delocalized modes. The radiation serves as a mediator of the intersoliton interaction leading to fluctuations of the soliton separations. We establish statistics of the fluctuations which is found to be sensitive to the phase mismatches and mutual polarizations of the solitons, and independent of the soliton separation. The theoretical results are justified by direct numerical simulations.

• Received 5 January 2004

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.69.046612