Skyrmion collapse

Abstract

We investigate the topological change of a Belavin-Polyakov skyrmion under the action of a spin-polarized current. The dynamics is described by the Schr\"odinger equation for the electrons carrying the current coupled to the Landau-Lifshitz equation for the evolution of the magnetic texture in a square lattice. We show that the addition of an exchange dissipation term, tends to smooth the transition from the skyrmion state to the ferromagnetic state. We demonstrate that this topological change, in the continuum dissipationless limit, can be described as a self-similar finite-time singularity by which the skyrmion core collapses.