We put forward a rich variety of optical vortex structures nested in a localized beam envelope supported by cubic-quintic media confined in a rotating harmonic trap. The globally linked vortex cluster comprises an even number of vortices with topological charges equaling 1 and $-1$ alternately. In the nonrotating frame, single-charged vortices reside evenly on a ring. Yet, the system rotation induces the Coriolis force, which in turn leads to a strong asymmetry of the vortex cluster. With the increase of rotation frequency, vortex clusters with a different number of vortices transform into rotating nonlinear states with different symmetries. Meanwhile, the beam envelope is deformed obviously. Nonrotating vortex clusters are stable provided that their power exceeds a certain critical value. Unstable rotating states are very robust and survive over thousands of diffraction lengths.

• Received 23 January 2022
• Accepted 20 April 2022

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.105.043522