[2608.14468] To $\mathcal{PT}$ or not to $\mathcal{PT}$: Noise-induced escape and nonlinear-damping stabilization in a parity-time dimer Skip to main content Search Submit Donate Log in Search arXiv Press Enter to search · Advanced search Quantum Physics arXiv:2608.14468 (quant-ph) [Submitted on 14 Aug 2026] Title: To $\mathcal{PT}$ or not to $\mathcal{PT}$: Noise-induced escape and nonlinear-damping stabilization in a parity-time dimer Authors: Richelle Jade L. Tuquero , Kilian Seibold , Oded Zilberberg View a PDF of the paper titled To $\mathcal{PT}$ or not to $\mathcal{PT}$: Noise-induced escape and nonlinear-damping stabilization in a parity-time dimer, by Richelle Jade L. Tuquero and 2 other authors View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract: Parity-time ($\mathcal{PT}$) symmetric systems exhibit long-lived excitations by balancing gain and loss in coupled resonators, driving extensive theoretical interest and diverse experimental realizations. Realistic physical implementations, however, inevitably introduce nonlinearities and noise. This mandates a rigorous reevaluation of their global long-time dynamics. In this work, we show that Hamiltonian Duffing nonlinearity restricts the $\mathcal{PT}$-unbroken phase to a finite, nonattracting region of phase space. Consequently, unavoidable fluctuations drive first-passage escape into runaway trajectories. This renders the linearly $\mathcal{PT}$-unbroken phase a purely transient phenomenon. We then recover global stochastic stability by introducing two-photon loss on the gain oscillator. This nonlinear damping explicitly breaks exact $\mathcal{PT}$ symmetry while supplying genuine phase-space attraction, generating a bistable regime where a low-amplitude orbit mimicking the original linear state coexists with a high-amplitude limit cycle. Thus, we establish a revised origin for stability in non-Hermitian experiments: the observed long-time stochastic stability is governed by inherent restoring dissipation rather than the spectral $\mathcal{PT}$ symmetry itself. Comments: 6 pages (main), 3 figures (main) + Supplemental Material (6 pages, 2 figures) Subjects: Quantum Physics (quant-ph) Cite as: arXiv:2608.14468 [quant-ph] (or arXiv:2608.14468v1 [quant-ph] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2608.14468 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite Submission history From: Richelle Jade Tuquero [ view email ] [v1] Fri, 14 Aug 2026 16:48:56 UTC (2,860 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View a PDF of the paper titled To $\mathcal{PT}$ or not to $\mathcal{PT}$: Noise-induced escape and nonlinear-damping stabilization in a parity-time dimer, by Richelle Jade L. Tuquero and 2 other authors View PDF HTML (experimental) TeX Source view license Current browse context: quant-ph < prev | next > new | recent | 2026-08 References & Citations INSPIRE HEP NASA ADS Google Scholar Semantic Scholar export BibTeX citation Loading... BibTeX formatted citation × loading... Data provided by: Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer ( What is the Explorer? ) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers ( What is Connected Papers? ) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps ( What is Litmaps? ) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations ( What are Smart Citations? ) Code, Data, Media Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv Toggle alphaXiv ( What is alphaXiv? ) Links to Code Toggle CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers ( What is CatalyzeX? ) DagsHub Toggle DagsHub ( What is DagsHub? ) GotitPub Toggle Gotit.pub ( What is GotitPub? ) Huggingface Toggle Hugging Face ( What is Huggingface? ) ScienceCast Toggle ScienceCast ( What is ScienceCast? ) Demos Demos Replicate Toggle Replicate ( What is Replicate? ) Spaces Toggle Hugging Face Spaces ( What is Spaces? ) Spaces Toggle TXYZ.AI ( What is TXYZ.AI? ) Related Papers Recommenders and Search Tools Link to Influence Flower Influence Flower ( What are Influence Flowers? ) Core recommender toggle CORE Recommender ( What is CORE? ) Author Venue Institution Topic About arXivLabs 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 . Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax ( What is MathJax? ) We gratefully acknowledge support from our major funders , member institutions , , and all contributors. About · Help · Contact · Subscribe · Copyright · Privacy · Accessibility · Operational Status (opens in new tab) Major funding support from