Anisotropic skyrmion crystal on a centrosymmetric square lattice under an in-plane magnetic field

Abstract

We investigate the instability toward a skyrmion crystal under an in-plane magnetic field in centrosymmetric tetragonal magnets. By performing the simulated annealing for a spin model on the square lattice, we find that the interplay among the easy-plane two-spin anisotropic interaction, positive biquadratic interaction, and high-harmonic wave-vector interaction plays an important role in stabilizing the skyrmion crystal in the in-plane external magnetic field. The obtained skyrmion crystal consists of a pair of vortex and antivortex with opposite polarization in terms of the out-of-plane spin component. We also show that various multiple-$Q$ states emerge depending on the model parameters. Our results indicate the possibility of topological spin textures in centrosymmetric tetragonal magnets with easy-plane magnetic anisotropy when the ground-state spin configuration at zero field is characterized by a single-$Q$ in-plane cycloidal spiral state.