Skyrmion-vortex pairing and vortex-drag induced Skyrmion Hall effect

TL;DR

This paper proposes a duality in a 2D ferromagnetic superconductor linking Skyrmions and vortices, predicting their pairing and a vortex-induced Skyrmion Hall effect with potential experimental implications.

Contribution

It introduces a novel duality framework for Skyrmion-vortex interactions and predicts a vortex-drag induced Skyrmion Hall effect in ferromagnetic superconductors.

Findings

Skyrmion and vortex excitations can form bound pairs due to attractive interactions.

A vortex can induce a transverse drift motion of a Skyrmion, termed the vortex-drag induced Skyrmion Hall effect.

The proposed effects have potential experimental signatures in ferromagnetic superconducting systems.

Abstract

An interaction between ferromagnetic and superconducting orders, to be realized in a two dimensional ferromagnetic superconductor, is proposed obeying necessary symmetry principles. This interaction allows us to formulate a duality, similar to the Boson-vortex duality in 2+1 dimensional superfluid. In the dual theory the Skyrmion and the vortex excitations interact with each other via an emergent gauge field. The static interaction potential is attractive for a Skyrmion and a vortex with opposite topological charges. This interaction can lead to formation of bound pairs of the mentioned topological excitations. Furthermore, we argue that such pairing implies that a Magnus force acting on the vortex induces a transverse, Hall-like drift motion of the Skyrmion, which we term the vortex-drag induced Skyrmion Hall effect. Possible experimental manifestations of this effect are also discussed.