Joint Carrier-Phase and Polarization Rotation Recovery for Arbitrary Signal Constellations

We introduce a framework where the combined impact of phase noise and fast polarization rotation can be described by a rotation in a four-dimensional space. Based on this outcome, we propose an equalization scheme performing joint carrier-phase and polarization rotation recovery that can be applied to arbitrary two- or four-dimensional signal constellations. After discussing practical implementation issues for this scheme, we show by means of numerical simulations that the performance of the proposed scheme is comparable with state-of-the-art equalization algorithms for the DP-QPSK, PS-QPSK, and 4D-32QAM modulation formats.