Perturbation theory for the Manakov soliton and its applications to pulse propagation in randomly birefringent fibers

We develop perturbation theory for the soliton of the Manakov equation, and apply it to the problem of soliton propagation in randomly birefringent fibers. We calculate both the slow evolution of the soliton parameters (through second order for two of them) as well as the radiation emitted by the soliton. Our analytical results agree well with the corresponding numerical results of earlier studies. We also relate results obtained with perturbation theory with those obtained from the intuitive picture of the dynamics of the soliton components as interacting quasiparticles.