High-order disclinations in space-variant polarization

We present the investigation of high-order disinclination patterns in the spatially variable polarization of a light beam. The beam was prepared by encoding two distinct high-order optical vortices on each of the circular polarization components of the beam. As a consequence, we were able to produce high-index lemon and star patterns, which have positive and negative indices, respectively. By varying the asymmetry of one of the vortices we were able to transform one symmetric pattern (lemon or star) into another (lemon or star). With one exception, monstar patterns always appear for specific ranges of asymmetry regardless of the end symmetric patterns. Mapping of all disclinations within each case is contained in a spherical space, where monstar regions are cusp-shaped. We found that high-order monstar patterns can have positive or negative index.