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Defect Structures and Phase Transitions in Thick Cholesteric Liquid-Crystal Shells

A numerical free-energy study showing that thick cholesteric LC shells with tangential anchoring undergo a thickness-driven transition from four surface-spanning disclination lines to a defect-free bulk with two boojums per surface; chirality stabilizes mixed boojum-disclination states and blue phases, and metastability enables an elastically induced surface rearrangement over a cholesteric hysteresis cycle.