Out-of-surface vortices in spherical shells

The interplay of topological defects with curvature is studied for out-of-surface magnetic vortices in thin spherical nanoshells. In the case of an easy-surface Heisenberg magnet it is shown that the curvature of the underlying surface leads to a coupling between the localized out-of-surface component of the vortex with its delocalized in-surface structure, i.e., polarity-chirality coupling. © 2012 American Physical Society