Consider a N×n random matrix Yn=(Yijn) where the entries are
given by Yijn=nσij(n)Xijn the
Xijn being centered, independent and identically distributed random
variables with unit variance and (σij(n);1≤i≤N,1≤j≤n)
being an array of numbers we shall refer to as a variance profile. We study in
this article the fluctuations of the random variable logdet(YnYn∗+ρIN) where Y∗ is the Hermitian adjoint of Y and ρ>0 is an
additional parameter. We prove that when centered and properly rescaled, this
random variable satisfies a Central Limit Theorem (CLT) and has a Gaussian
limit whose parameters are identified. A complete description of the scaling
parameter is given; in particular it is shown that an additional term appears
in this parameter in the case where the 4th moment of the
Xij's differs from the 4th moment of a Gaussian random
variable. Such a CLT is of interest in the field of wireless communications