CP² Skyrmion and Skyrmion Crystals in Realistic Quantum Magnets

Magnetic skyrmions are nanoscale topological textures recently observed in different families of quantum magnets. These textures are called CP¹ skyrmions because the target manifold of the magnetization field is the 2D sphere S²≅CP¹. In this work, we will generalize the concept of magnetic skyrmions by exploiting the fact that N-level systems admit more than one classical limit. Here we report the emergence of magnetic CP² skyrmions in realistic spin-1 models based on SU(3) coherent states. Moreover, unlike CP¹ skyrmions, CP² skyrmions can also arise as metastable textures of quantum paramagnets, opening a new road to discover emergent topological solitons in non-magnetic materials.