Large diversity of magnetic phases in two-dimensional magnets with spin-orbit coupling and superconductivity

TL;DR

This paper explores the diverse magnetic phases in two-dimensional magnetic systems with spin-orbit coupling and superconductivity, revealing complex structures like skyrmion lattices through advanced computational methods.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive classification of magnetic ground states in 2D systems with spin-orbit coupling and superconductivity, highlighting the discovery of complex magnetic structures and the use of contrastive clustering for analysis.

Findings

Discovery of complex magnetic phases including skyrmion lattices

Identification of non-zero 4-spin interactions in the system

Application of contrastive clustering to analyze thousands of configurations

Abstract

We classify the magnetic ground states of a 2D lattice of localized magnetic moments which are coupled to a superconducting substrate with Rashba-spin-orbit coupling. We discover a rich magnetic phase diagram with surprisingly complex structures including 2q-spin-spirals, a 2x2-periodic pattern, and skyrmion lattices, self-consistently, using an effective classical spin Hamiltonian and show that the system hosts non-zero 4-spin interactions. Our in-depth analysis of about ten thousand magnetic configurations becomes feasible using contrastive clustering, a recent advanced unsupervised machine learning technique. This work proposes simple few-band systems for non-collinear magnetic states and stimulates further research on topological effects in their self-consistent electronic structure.