We study the deterministic effects of Raman-induced crosstalk in amplified
wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) optical fiber transmission lines. We
show that the dynamics of pulse amplitudes in an N-channel transmission system
is described by an N-dimensional predator-prey model. We find the equilibrium
states with non-zero amplitudes and prove their stability by obtaining the
Lyapunov function. The stability is independent of the exact details of the
approximation for the Raman gain curve. Furthermore, we investigate the impact
of cross phase modulation and Raman self and cross frequency shifts on the
dynamics and establish the stability of the equilibrium state with respect to
these perturbations. Our results provide a quantitative explanation for the
robustness of differential-phase-shift-keyed WDM transmission against Raman
crosstalk effects.Comment: 34 pages and 12 figures. Revised paper. Submitted to Optics
Communication