Nonlinear cross-polarization mitigation algorithm

A coherent optical receiver adapted to receive an optical signal transmitted over an optical transmission channel exhibiting cross polarization modulation (XPOLM), wherein the received optical signal comprises a first polarization component and a second polarization component, and wherein the first and second polarization components comprise sequences of Mary phase shift keying (MPSK) symbols, respectively, M being an integer, with M>2, the coherent optical receiver comprising:

• a conversion and processing unit adapted to generate a set of digital signals based on the received optical signal;
• a polarization de-multiplexing unit adapted to de-multiplex the set of digital signals into a first complex component along a first polarization axis and a second complex component along a second polarization axis;
• and
• an XPOLM compensation unit adapted to
• transform the first and second complex components into the Stokes space, thereby yielding a set of Stokes parameters;
• determine a transformation of the first and second polarization axes based on the set of Stokes parameters;
• and
• determine XPOLM compensated first and second complex components by transforming the first and second complex components in accordance to the determined transformation of the first and second polarization axes.