Chiral hedgehog textures in 2D XY-like ordered domains

Abstract

The textures associated with a point defect centered in a circular domain of a thin film with XY-like ordering have been analyzed. The family of equilibrium textures, both stable and metastable, can be classified by a new radial topological number in addition to the winding number of the defect. Chiral textures are supported in an achiral system as a result of spontaneously broken chiral symmetry. Among these chiral textures, our theoretical analysis accurately describes two categories of recently discovered ``reversing spiral'' textures, ones that are energetically stable and metastable.