We address ring-shaped surface waves supported by defocusing thermal media with circular cross-section. Such waves exist because of the balance between repulsion from the interface and deflection of light from the bulk medium due to defocusing nonlocal nonlinearity. The properties of such surface waves are determined by the geometry of the sample. Nodeless ring surface waves are stable for all ...

[1] Sea-surface slope probability density functions, which are usually fitted to a GramCharlier series, can be fit equally well by a bound wave/free wave model in which the distributions of bound and free waves are Gaussian. Bound waves are generated by longer waves on the surface and travel at nearly the phase speed of the long wave while free waves are generated directly by the wind and trave...