Dimensional transformation

An optical receiver configured to receive an optical signal over an optical communications channel established between the optical receiver and an optical transmitter, wherein the received optical signal comprises a degraded version of a modulated optical signal generated at the optical transmitter, the optical receiver comprising:

• a polarizing beam splitter configured to split the received optical signal into polarized components;
• an optical hybrid configured to process the polarized components to generate processed components;
• photodetectors configured to convert the processed components into received analog signals;
• analog-to-digital converters configured to convert the received analog signals into received digital signals corresponding to a plurality of first dimensions of the received optical signal, wherein the first dimensions correspond to dimensions of an optical carrier modulated at the optical transmitter to represent a multi-bit symbol, and wherein the first dimensions are distributed over two or more timeslots;
• a processor;
• and
• a memory storing computer-executable instructions which, when executed by the processor, cause the processor
• to apply an inverse dimensional transformation to the received digital signals to generate preliminary digital drive signal estimates corresponding to a plurality of second dimensions, and
• to process the preliminary digital drive signal estimate to generate an estimate of the multi-bit symbol.