Evaluation of the capacity of communication lines with nonlinear finite memory

We propose a method for calculating the capacity of a finite-memory channel up to the square of the nonlinear memory parameter. A comparison with a regular Gaussian model is performed, in which the Kerr nonlinearity is considered as an additional Gaussian noise. The estimate by the regular Gaussian model is shown to yield a greater capacity as compared with the estimate obtained by the nonlinear memory model. The optimal signal powers, providing the maximum mutual information, are found to be equal.