Pilot-tone assisted log-likelihood ratio for LDPC coded CO-OFDM system

Pilot-tone assisted log-likelihood ratio (PT-LLR) is derived for low-density parity-check coded, coherent optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing systems in the presence of linear phase noise. The knowledge of common phase error (CPE) obtained from the pilot-tone is incorporated into the new LLR metric, which eliminates the need for prior CPE estimation and compensation. We compare our metric with the conventional LLR (C-LLR) through extensive simulation using their approximate versions (APT-LLR, AC-LLR). APT-LLR has the same order of complexity as AC-LLR while it outperforms AC-LLR for higher order modulation formats (16-QAM, 64-QAM) at smaller pilot-tone-to-signal power ratios. In addition, we show that with the help of time-domain blind intercarrier interference mitigation, both metrics perform better in the presence of larger laser linewidth.