Statistical Description of Transport in Multimode Fibers with Mode-Dependent Loss

We analyze coherent wave transport in a new physical setting associated with multimode wave systems where reflection is completely suppressed and mode-dependent losses together with mode-mixing are dictating the wave propagation. An additional physical constraint is the fact that in realistic circumstances the access to the scattering (or transmission) matrix is incomplete. We have addressed all these challenges by providing a statistical description of wave transport which fuses together a free probability theory approach with a Filtered Random Matrix ensemble. Our theoretical predictions have been tested successfully against experimental data of light transport in multimode fibers.