Depolarization of quasimonochromatic radiation in randomly inhomogeneous fiber waveguides with a quadratic refractive index profile

A theoretical analysis is made of the depolarization of quasimonochromatic radiation in isotropically random inhomogeneous fiber waveguides with a quadratic profile of the refractive index. An analysis is made of the characteristic features of the process and an estimate is obtained of the depolarization coefficient of radiation in the case of typical single-mode fiber waveguides. A method is developed for calculating the depolarization coefficient which can be applied to fiber waveguides with an arbitrary distribution of the refractive index over the cross section of the fiber, and also to multimode fiber waveguides. The theoretical predictions are in good agreement with experimental results and are of practical importance for coherent fiber-optic communication and measuring systems.