Hamiltonian dynamics of dispersion-managed breathers

An analytic description is presented for the pulse dynamics in a dispersion-managed communications system in which the average dispersion is in the anomalous regime. A variational formalism reduces the governing equations to a planar Hamiltonian system for which a geometrical interpretation of the pulse dynamics is given. The reduced model gives a simple method for calculating the ideal enhanced initial power for a dispersion-managed breather and further exhibits a long-time periodic behavior, which is present in the full governing equations. Extensive numerical simulations verify the range of validity of the reduced equations.