title: Topological States in Partially-PT-Symmetric Azimuthal Potentials.
abstract: We introduce partially-parity-time (pPT)-symmetric azimuthal potentials composed from individual PT-symmetric cells located on a ring, where two azimuthal directions are nonequivalent in a sense that in such potential excitations carrying topological dislocations exhibit different dynamics for different directions of energy circulation in the initial field distribution. Such nonconservative ratchetlike structures support rich families of stable vortex solitons in cubic nonlinear media, whose properties depend on the sign of the topological charge due to the nonequivalence of azimuthal directions. In contrast, oppositely charged vortex solitons remain equivalent in similar fully-PT-symmetric potentials. The vortex solitons in the pPT- and PT-symmetric potentials are shown to feature qualitatively different internal current distributions, which are described by different discrete rotation symmetries of the intensity profiles.
authors.affiliation: ICFO-Institut de Ciencies Fotoniques, The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, 08860 Castelldefels (Barcelona), Spain.|Institute of Spectroscopy, Russian Academy of Sciences, Troitsk, Moscow Region 142190, Russia.
authors.forename: Yaroslav V
authors.initials: YV
authors.lastname: Kartashov
authors.affiliation: Centro de Física Teórica e Computacional and Departamento de Física, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, Campo Grande 2, Edifício C8, Lisboa 1749-016, Portugal.
authors.forename: Vladimir V
authors.initials: VV
authors.lastname: Konotop
authors.affiliation: ICFO-Institut de Ciencies Fotoniques, The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, 08860 Castelldefels (Barcelona), Spain.|Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, 08034 Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Lluis
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Torner