Breakdown of weak-turbulence and nonlinear wave condensation

Abstract The formation of a large-scale coherent structure (a condensate) as a result of the long time evolution of the initial value problem of a classical partial differential nonlinear wave equation is considered. We consider the nonintegrable and unforced defocusing NonLinear Schrodinger (NLS) equation as a representative model. In spite of the formal reversibility of the NLS equation, the nonlinear wave exhibits an irreversible evolution towards a thermodynamic equilibrium state. The equilibrium state is characterized by a homogeneous solution (condensate), with small-scale fluctuations superposed (uncondensed particles), which store the information necessary for “time reversal”. We an…