Extended Data Fig. 4: Calculated minimum energy paths: different energetic contributions.
From: Experimental identification of two distinct skyrmion collapse mechanisms
a, The energy contributions along the minimum energy path given relative to the initial relaxed skyrmion state for the radial symmetric collapse of an isolated skyrmion, B⊥ = 3.2 T, B∥ = 0.0 T. b, Same as (a) for the chimera collapse, B⊥ = 3.2 T, B∥ = 1.5 T. The legend applies to both images. Black: total energy along the deduced minimum energy path (methods), red: contribution of exchange energy, blue: contribution of Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI), pink: contribution of magnetocrystalline anisotropy energy, green: contribution of Zeeman energy caused by the applied B. The saddle point (SP, maximum of black curve) is dominated by exchange energy in both cases. For (a), the DMI contribution raises from the start, while the anisotropy and Zeeman energy shrink simultaneously. For (b), the DMI contribution starts rising only shortly prior to the SP, hence contributing much less energy penalty to the SP, while Zeeman and anisotropy contributions barely lower the SP energy and shrink only after the SP has been overcome (detailed analysis in Supplementary Sections S8/S9).
