Comparing skyrmions and merons in chiral liquid crystals and magnets

TL;DR

This paper compares skyrmions and merons in chiral liquid crystals and magnets, analyzing their formation, stability, and interactions through theoretical and computational methods, revealing how order parameter nature influences their properties.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive phase diagram and stability analysis of skyrmions and merons, highlighting differences based on order parameter types in liquid crystals and magnets.

Findings

Skyrmions are metastable and can move and interact as particles.

Merons require singularities for packing, unlike skyrmions.

Properties depend on whether the order parameter is vector or tensor.

Abstract

When chiral liquid crystals or magnets are subjected to applied fields or other anisotropic environments, the competition between favored twist and anisotropy leads to the formation of complex defect structures. In some cases, the defects are skyrmions, which have 180{\deg} double twist going outward from the center, and hence can pack together without singularities in the orientational order. In other cases, the defects are merons, which have 90{\deg} double twist going outward from the center; packing such merons requires singularities in the orientational order. In the liquid crystal context, a lattice of merons is regarded as a blue phase. Here, we perform theoretical and computational studies of skyrmions and merons in chiral liquid crystals and magnets. Through these studies, we calculate the phase diagrams for liquid crystals and magnets in terms of dimensionless ratios of energetic parameters. We also predict the range of metastability for liquid crystal skyrmions, and show that these skyrmions can move and interact as effective particles. The results show how the properties of skyrmions and merons depend on the vector or tensor nature of the order parameter.