Optical Thermodynamics Beyond the Weak Nonlinearity Limit

Nonlinear Sciences > Pattern Formation and Solitons [Submitted on 13 Feb 2026 (v1), last revised 17 Jun 2026 (this version, v4)] Title:Optical Thermodynamics Beyond the Weak Nonlinearity Limit View PDF HTML (experimental)Abstract:Optical thermodynamics has recently emerged as a theoretical framework describing a Rayleigh-Jeans (RJ) modal power distribution of multimoded nonlinear photonic circuits. However, its applicability is constrained to systems exhibiting weak nonlinear mode-mode interactions. Here, by employing a Transfer Integral Operator, we circumvent this limitation and establish a steady-state interacting RJ modal distribution -- referred to as non-ideal RJ (NIRJ) -- with renormalized temperature and optical chemical potential. This also builds a natural bridge with earlier work on grand-canonical statistical-mechanical formulations of discrete nonlinear systems. The theory derives the optical analogue of the compressibility factor, which controls the transition from an ideal, non-interacting equation of state (EoS) to a van der Waals-like interacting EoS. Submission history From: Emily Kabat [view email][v1] Fri, 13 Feb 2026 18:18:16 UTC (925 KB) [v2] Tue, 24 Feb 2026 00:44:51 UTC (925 KB) [v3] Mon, 30 Mar 2026 14:27:34 UTC (926 KB) [v4] Wed, 17 Jun 2026 21:22:25 UTC (969 KB) Current browse context: nlin.PS Change to browse by: References & Citations Loading... Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv (What is alphaXiv?) CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers (What is CatalyzeX?) DagsHub (What is DagsHub?) Gotit.pub (What is GotitPub?) Hugging Face (What is Huggingface?) ScienceCast (What is ScienceCast?) Demos Recommenders and Search Tools Influence Flower (What are Influence Flowers?) CORE Recommender (What is CORE?) arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them. Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs.