On the variability of the sample covariance matrix under complex elliptical distributions

We derive the variance-covariance matrix of the sample covariance matrix (SCM) as well as its theoretical mean squared error (MSE) when sampling from complex elliptical distributions with finite fourth-order moments. We also derive the form of the variance-covariance matrix for any affine equivariant matrix-valued statistics. Finally, illustrative examples of the formulas are presented.