Walls and chains of planar skyrmions

In planar (baby) Skyrme systems, there may be extended linear structures which resemble either domain walls or chains of skyrmions, depending on the choice of potential and boundary conditions. We show that systems with a single vacuum, for example with potential V=1-phi_3, admit chain solutions, whereas walls are ruled out by the uniqueness of the vacuum. On the other hand, in double-vacuum systems such as V=1/2*(1-phi_3^2), one has stable wall solutions, but there are no stable chains; the walls may be viewed as the primary objects in such systems, with skyrmions being made out of them.