We investigate magnetic nano-pillars, in which two thin ferromagnetic nanoparticles are separated by a nanometer thin nonmagnetic spacer and can be set into stable spin vortex-pair configurations. The 16 ground states of the vortex-pair system are characterized by parallel or antiparallel chirality and parallel or antiparallel core-core alignment. We detect and differentiate these individual vortex-pair states experimentally and analyze their dynamics analytically and numerically. Of particular interest is the limit of strong core-core coupling, which we find can dominate the spin dynamics in the system. We observe that the 0.2 GHz gyrational resonance modes of the individual vortices are replaced with 2-6 GHz range collective rotational and vibrational core-core resonances in the configurations where the cores form a bound pair. These results demonstrate new opportunities in producing and manipulating spin states on the nanoscale and may prove useful for new types of ultra-dense storage devices where the information is stored as multiple vortex-core configurations.
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