The underaddressed optical multiple-input, multiple-output channel: capacity and outage

We study an optical space-division multiplexed system where the number of modes that are addressed by the transmitter and receiver is allowed to be smaller than the total number of optical modes supported by the fiber. This situation will be of relevance if, for instance, fibers supporting more modes than can be processed with current multiple-input, multiple-output technology are deployed with the purpose of future-proof installation. We calculate the ergodic capacity and the outage probability of the link and study their dependence on the number of addressed modes at the transmitter and receiver.