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Definition: the distance over which higher-order solitons reproduce their temporal and spectral shape
The soliton period is defined as the propagation distance in which the nonlinear phase delay of a fundamental soliton reaches the value π / 4. This definition is motivated by the fact that higher-order solitons reproduce their temporal and spectral shape with this period.
The soliton period can be calculated according to
where 
p is the pulse duration (full width at half-maximum, FWHM) and β2 is the group delay dispersion of the fiber (in s2/m).
In situations where solitons are periodically disturbed (e.g. in a soliton mode-locked laser or in an amplified optical fiber communications system), the effect of these disturbances depends strongly on the ratio of the period of the disturbances to the soliton period. If this ratio is well below unity (as is often the case in lasers), the solitons essentially experience just the average values of chromatic dispersion and Kerr nonlinearity, but for larger values of this ratio solitons can become unstable.
See also: solitons, higher-order solitons, adiabatic soliton compression
