System and Method for Managing the Selection of Ghost Channels for Mitigating Polarization Hole Burning

A system and method for selecting ghost channels in an optical communication system, including components configured to examine an optical communication channel within a node of the optical communication system, examine a neighbor channel of the optical communication channel, determine whether using the neighbor channel as a ghost channel will create an undesirable level of risk of feedback within the optical communication system, if using the neighbor channel as a ghost channel will not create an undesirable level of risk of feedback, determine whether the neighbor channel is currently used as a ghost channel, and if the neighbor channel is not currently used as a ghost channel, select the neighbor channel as a ghost channel.