Three-sublattice antiferro-type and ferri-type skyrmion crystals in centrosymmetric magnets

Abstract

We numerically investigate the stability of the skyrmion crystals in a centrosymmetric lattice structure by focusing on the role of magnetic frustration arising from the multi-sublattice degree of freedom. By analyzing an effective three-sublattice spin model with the antiferromagnetic exchange interaction between different sublattices and the momentum-resolved exchange interaction between the same sublattice based on the simulated annealing, we find that various skyrmion crystal phases with sublattice-dependent skyrmion numbers are stabilized with and without an external magnetic field depending on the model parameters: two ferro-type skyrmion crystal phases with the skyrmion numbers of one and two, two ferri-type skyrmion crystal phases, and one antiferro-type skyrmion crystal phase. Our results indicate that the multi-sublattice degree of freedom brings a further intriguing possibility of inducing exotic skyrmion crystal phases.