Relaxation dynamics in magnetic skyrmions with quenched disorder

Magnetic skyrmions are topologically protected spin textures of nanometer size found in certain chiral magnets. Skyrmions can be moved by very low current densities which makes them ideal for applications in spintronics such as data storage devices and logic gates. A thorough understanding of the relaxation processes for systems of interacting skyrmions far from equilibrium could prove invaluable in real world applications. We use a particle based model derived from Thiele's approach to study the relaxation dynamics of thin film skyrmions in the presence of randomly distributed defects. The particle model differs most notably from similar models which describe vortices in type-II superconductors by the addition of the Magnus force which always acts perpendicular to the forces in the plane. The interplay between the Magnus force, repulsive skyrmion-skyrmion interaction and Gaussian noise yields different regimes during non-equilibrium relaxation depending on the strength of the defects.