Locking of skyrmion cores on a centrosymmetric discrete lattice: onsite versus offsite

Abstract: A magnetic skyrmion crystal (SkX) with a swirling spin configuration, which is one of topological spin crystals as a consequence of an interference between multiple spin density waves, shows a variety of noncoplanar spin patterns depending on a way of superposing the waves. By focusing on a phase degree of freedom among the constituent waves in the SkX, we theoretically investigate a position of the skyrmion core on a discrete lattice, which is relevant with the symmetry of the SkX. The results are obtained for the double exchange (classical Kondo lattice) model on a discrete triangular lattice by the variational calculations. We find that the skyrmion cores in both two SkXs with the skyrmion number of one and two are locked at the interstitial site on the triangular lattice, while it is located at the onsite by introducing a relatively large easy-axis single-ion anisotropy. The variational parameters and the resultant Fermi surfaces in each SkX spin texture are also discussed. The different symmetry of the Fermi surfaces depending on the core position is obtained when the skyrmion crystal is commensurate with the lattice. The different Fermi-surface topology is directly distinguished by an electric probe of angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy. Furthermore, we show that the SkXs obtained by the variational calculations are also confirmed by numerical simulations on the basis of the kernel polynomial method and the Langevin dynamics for the double exchange model and the simulated annealing for an effective spin model.