Isotropic and anisotropic stretching of dissipative vortices in chiral nematic liquid crystals

Dissipative vortices are particle-like solutions of vector fields in out-of-equilibrium systems, characterized by topological properties that determine their existence, stability and dynamics. Chiral nematic liquid crystals (NLC) under geometrical frustration are a natural habitat to observe the emergence of dissipative vortices in response to external stimuli. We use numerical simulations of a two-dimensional chiral-anisotropic Ginzburg-Landau equation to show the effects of chirality on the shapes of +1 and -1 NLC defects. Specifically, we illustrate that +1 vortices undergo isotropic stretching, while -1 vortices experience anisotropic deformation, which can be inferred from the free energy of the system. We also discuss an interesting similarity between the deformations introduced by chirality and the pupil shapes of animals.