Kim et al. Reply: In discussing our Letter [1],it is important (I) to understand the phrase "confined-to-propagating transition of LO phonons" properly and (2) to realize how the experimental hot phonon occupation number can be sensitive to such a transition.When we suggest that LO phonons are propagating and not confined, we do not intend to imply directly that there is a significant probability of finding the GaAs LO phonons in the alloy barrier region. The eigenvector ratio

Abstract-We have developed a model that accurately predicts the dynamics of the signal pulses and the growth of amplified spontaneous emission noise in a dispersion-managed soliton pulse train propagating in a recirculating fiber-loop experiment. Theoretically predicted dependencies of the amplitude and phase margins for the marks and the amplitude margin for the spaces as a function of distance are in remarkable agreement with the experiments. This model allows us to determine the key physical effects that limit the propagation distance in our experiments.Index Terms-Amplitude margin, amplified spontaneous emission noise, dispersion-managed soliton (DMS), excess gain, filter, phase margin, pulse dynamics, timing jitter.

We have measured the timing jitter for dispersion-managed solitons in a recirculating loop for distances up to 20,000 km. The data were obtained with modulated data, 2(7) - 1 and 2(23) - 1 pseudorandom binary sequence patterns, at 10-Gbit/s rates and with an unmodulated pulse train at 10 GHz. We have obtained good agreement with our data, using a filtered Gordon-Haus model for the timing jitter reduced by the energy enhancement of our solitons relative to solitons in a fiber with a constant dispersion equal to our map's path-average dispersion. We have also measured a bit-error rate of <10(-9) at a distance of 15,000 km.

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