title: Conical soliton escape into a third dimension of a surface vortex.
abstract: We present an exact three-dimensional solitonic solution to a sine-Gordon-type Euler-Lagrange equation that describes a configuration of a three-dimensional vector field n constrained to a surface p-vortex, with a prescribed polar tilt angle on a planar substrate and escaping into the third dimension in the bulk. The solution is relevant to characterization of a schlieren texture in nematic liquid-crystal films with tangential (in-plane) substrate alignment. The solution is identical to a section of a point defect discovered many years ago by Saupe [Mol. Cryst. Liq. Cryst. 21, 211 (1973)], when latter is restricted to a surface.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309, USA.
authors.forename: Leo
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Radzihovsky
authors.forename: Quan
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Zhang