Asymptotic Characteristics of the Evolution of Polarization of Nonmonochromatic Radiation in Single-Mode Optical Fibers with a Random Twisting of Axes of Linear Birefringence. I. Limiting of Polarization in an Infinitely Long Fiber

Abstract

We reduce the problem of finding the limiting value of the fiber-ensemble averaged degree of radiation polarization of in an infinitely long optical fiber to the problem of distributions (including joint distributions) of random complex amplitudes E(λ,z) of the electric field in an optical wave for different wavelengths λ and the fiber length z tending to infinity. We prove that the random complex vector E(λ,z) is uniformly distributed on a three-dimensional sphere if z→∞. It is also proved that the random vectors E(λ₁,z) and E(λ₂,z) are independent if λ₁≠λ₂ and z→∞, whence it follows that their joint distribution is entirely determined by the distribution of each of them. The result obtained allows us to find the limiting average values of various quantities describing the radiation upon passing an optical fiber with a random twisting of the anisotropy axes. In particular, on the basis of this result, we show that the average degree of polarization of incoherent radiation upon passing a fiber with such random irregularities tends to zero as the optical-fiber length goes to infinity.