Tunable skyrmion crystals and topological quantum oscillations in magnetic metals
Abstract
Skyrmions are spatially localized magnetic swirls which carry a nonzero integer topological charge. We study crystals of skyrmions in a two-dimensional ferromagnet model with chiral interactions induced by the presence of broken inversion symmetry. We show that non-linear quartic mode-coupling terms allowed by symmetry enhances the Zeeman-field range over which the skyrmion-crystal phase remains stable. Furthermore, it leads to a significant dependence of the lattice constant of this spin crystal over this wide field range. Conduction electrons coupled to such a tunable spin crystal are shown to experience a Berry-flux density which varies with the Zeeman field. Such tunable skyrmion crystals provide a distinct realization of a Berry-Hofstadter butterfly, resulting in a phenomenon we term "topological quantum oscillations" in the electronic density of states and associated observables.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1810.08207,
title = {Tunable skyrmion crystals and topological quantum oscillations in magnetic metals},
author = {Sopheak Sorn and Stefan Divic and Arun Paramekanti},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1810.08207},
year = {2021}
}