Fractional vortices refer to a phenomenon in condensed matter physics, particularly in the context of superfluidity and superconductivity. These are defects in the order parameter of a superfluid or a superconductor where the vorticity is not an integer multiple of \(2\pi\). In simpler terms, while classical vortices are characterized by a circulation that corresponds to an integer number of quantum units, fractional vortices possess a circulation that is a fraction of that.
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