Frustration-stabilized skyrmions in centrosymmetric compounds

Skyrmions are chiral magnetic spin textures that exist in a variety of different magnetic materials. Skyrmions are usually stabilized in noncentrosymmetric chiral materials by Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions, and we have shown the muSR is a powerful technique to study skyrmions in these systems. Recently, skyrmions have been discovered in the two centrosymmetric compounds Gd3Ru4Al12 and GdPdSi3 where they are thought to be stabilized instead by magnetic frustration. Complex magnetic states that are not yet well understood have also been found in the related compound Tb2PdSi3. We propose to perform muSR measurements of Gd3Ru4Al12 and Tb2PdSi3 to study this novel frustration-stabilized skyrmion state, and the related magnetic states, which will complement our recent ISIS measurements on GdPdSi3. This will help uncover the physics behind this new stabilization mechanism for skyrmions.

斯格明子（Skyrmions）是存在于多种不同磁性材料中的手性磁自旋纹理。斯格明子通常通过Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya相互作用（Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions）在非中心对称手性材料中稳定存在，而我们已证明μ子自旋弛豫（muon spin relaxation, muSR）是研究此类体系中斯格明子的有力技术。近期，在两种中心对称化合物Gd3Ru4Al12和GdPdSi3中发现了斯格明子，它们被认为是通过磁阻挫（magnetic frustration）而非上述相互作用稳定存在的。在相关化合物Tb2PdSi3中还发现了尚未被充分理解的复杂磁态。我们提议对Gd3Ru4Al12和Tb2PdSi3进行muSR测量，以研究这种新型的磁阻挫稳定斯格明子态及相关磁态，这将补充我们近期对GdPdSi3开展的ISIS测量（ISIS measurements）。这将有助于揭示斯格明子这种新型稳定机制背后的物理本质。