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Topological states in partially-PT-symmetric azimuthal potentials

We introduce partially-parity-time-symmetric (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 potentials excitations carrying topological dislo-cations exhibit different dynamics for different directions of energy circulation in the initial field distribution. Such non-conservative ratchet-like 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.