Skyrmion and vortex crystals in the Hubbard model

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the emergence of skyrmion and vortex crystal phases in a centrosymmetric triangular-lattice Hubbard model, highlighting the role of itinerant electrons in stabilizing topological spin textures without localized moments.

Contribution

It introduces the realization of skyrmion and vortex crystals in an itinerant electron system using mean-field calculations, expanding understanding beyond localized spin models.

Findings

Two types of skyrmion crystals with charge modulations are found at zero magnetic field.

A vortex crystal phase without net scalar chirality is identified near the skyrmion phase.

The vortex crystal undergoes a topological transition to a skyrmion phase under magnetic field.

Abstract

A mutual interplay between the charge and spin degrees of freedom in itinerant magnets leads to a plethora of topological spin textures, such as magnetic skyrmion and vortex crystals, in both centrosymmetric and noncentrosymmetric hosts. Meanwhile, their stabilization has been extensively studied in the system including the classical localized spins. We here study a realization of the skyrmion crystal in the centrosymmetric triangular-lattice Hubbard model, where the itinerant nature of electrons plays a more significant role. By performing the self-consistent mean-field calculations, we find that two types of skyrmion crystals with spatially nonuniform charge modulations appear in the ground state at a zero magnetic field. Moreover, we obtain another noncoplanar vortex crystal phase without a net scalar chirality in the vicinity of the skyrmion crystal phase. We show that the latter vortex crystal exhibits the topological phase transition to a different skyrmion phase in an applied magnetic field. Our results provide a possibility of the skyrmion and vortex crystals in itinerant magnets without the localized moments.