An optical amplifier which can suppress, without measuring signal beam power at individual wavelengths, wavelength-dependence of gain with respect to a signal beam into which multiple signal beams having respective wavelengths different from each other are multiplexed. The optical amplifier can suppress wavelength-dependence of gain by giving loss in accordance with a linear-loss slope to an amplified signal beam. The optical amplifier includes a variable tilt equalizer for varying a loss slope value representing the slope of the loss slope and a tilt control unit for controlling a loss slope value of the variable tilt equalizer.