  We consider nonlinear analogues of Parity-Time (PT) symmetric linear systems
exhibiting defocusing nonlinearities. We study the ground state and excited
states (dark solitons and vortices) of the system and report the following
remarkable features. For relatively weak values of the parameter $\varepsilon$
controlling the strength of the PT-symmetric potential, excited states undergo
(analytically tractable) spontaneous symmetry breaking; as $\varepsilon$ is
further increased, the ground state and first excited state, as well as
branches of higher multi-soliton (multi-vortex) states, collide in pairs and
disappear in blue-sky bifurcations, in a way which is strongly reminiscent of
the linear PT-phase transition ---thus termed the nonlinear PT-phase
transition. Past this critical point, initialization of, e.g., the former
ground state leads to spontaneously emerging solitons and vortices.
