Photon Orbits and Thermodynamic Phase Transition of Regular AdS Black Holes

Abstract: We probe the phase structure of the regular AdS black holes using the null geodesics. The radius of photon orbit and minimum impact parameter shows a non-monotonous behaviour below the critical values of the temperature and the pressure, corresponding to the phase transition in extended phase space. The respective differences of the radius of unstable circular orbit and the minimum impact parameter can be seen as the order parameter for the small-large black hole phase transition, with a critical exponent $1/2$. Our study shows that there exists a close relationship between the gravity and thermodynamics for the regular AdS black holes.