November 22, 2021: Mike Zaletel

Electrically charged skyrmions and superconductivity

Abstract
Skyrmions, first proposed in the context of nuclear physics, elegantly realize Kelvin’s dream of understanding particles as topological defects in an underlying field. When skyrmions arise in 2D materials with band topology, Berry-phase effects can endow them with an electric charge in addition to their magnetic moment, with intriguing implications for electrical transport. In this talk I’ll explain how skyrmions may even pair into charge-2 bosons, potentially giving a new route to electron-mediated superconductivity, and show how recent scanning tunneling microscopy experiments can “image” charged skyrmions in graphene.