Effect of magnetic anisotropy on skyrmions with a high topological number in itinerant magnets

Abstract

We report our numerical results for the effect of magnetic anisotropy on a Skyrmion crystal with a high topological number of two, which was recently discovered in an itinerant electron model [R. Ozawa, S. Hayami, and Y. Motome, Phys. Rev. Lett. 118, 147205 (2017)]. By performing numerical simulations based on the kernel polynomial method and the Langevin dynamics for the Kondo lattice model on a triangular lattice, we find that the topological property remains robust against the single-ion anisotropy, while the magnetic texture is deformed continuously. The resultant spin structure is characterized by three wave numbers (triple-$Q$ state), in which the $xy$ component of spins forms a magnetic vortex crystal and the $z$ component of spins behaves a sinusoidal wave. For larger anisotropy, we show that the system exhibits a phase transition from the Skyrmion crystal to topologically trivial phases with vanishing scalar chirality: a single-$Q$ collinear and double-$Q$ noncoplanar states for the easy-axis and easy-plane anisotropy, respectively. We also examine the effect of the single-ion anisotropy in an external magnetic field, and find that the field range of the Skyrmion crystal is rather insensitive to the anisotropy, in contrast to another Skyrmion crystal with the topological number of one whose field range is considerably extended (reduced) by the easy-axis (easy-plane) anisotropy.