Calculations of outage probabilities due to PMD using importance sampling

We have shown how importance-sampled Monte-Carlo simulations provide an efficient method for computing the tails of the differential group delay (DGD) probability distribution due to polarization-mode dispersion (PMD). We have also applied this technique to study PMD compensators with an arbitrarily rotatable polarization controller and a single, fixed DGD element, demonstrating that for realistic power penalties the optimal DGD value used in the compensator can be two to three times larger than the mean DGD.