A Skyrme lattice with hexagonal symmetry

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel hexagonally symmetric Skyrme lattice resembling graphite, with low energy per baryon, expanding the understanding of Skyrmion structures and their potential for higher charge configurations.

Contribution

It presents a new Skyrme field configuration with hexagonal symmetry, analogous to fullerene shells, and discusses its low energy properties and implications for Skyrmion shells.

Findings

The Skyrme lattice has low energy per baryon, about 6% above the bound.

The configuration is analogous to graphite in structure.

Potential for higher charge Skyrmion shells is discussed.

Abstract

Recently it has been found that the structure of Skyrmions has a close analogy to that of fullerene shells in carbon chemistry. In this letter we show that this analogy continues further, by presenting a Skyrme field that describes a lattice of Skyrmions with hexagonal symmetry. This configuration, a novel `domain wall' in the Skyrme model, has low energy per baryon (about 6% above the Faddeev-Bogomolny bound) and in many ways is analogous to graphite. By comparison to the energy per baryon of other known Skyrmions and also the Skyrme crystal, we discuss the possibility of finding Skyrmion shells of higher charge.