Skymion observed in magnets

There came a paper [1] reporting the observation of individual skymions.

Skymion is a topological texture of certain physical order parameter, such as magnetization. One interesting property of topological texture is its stability against local perturbations. Such stability does not imply being low in energy. Rather, it means a big barrier preventing its demise into other configurations. This barrier exists because, to destroy a topological object needs a global change, which could happen only at very insignificant probability. Any local change cannot get rid of it.

[1]X. Z. Yu,Y. Onose, N. Kanazawa, J. H. Park, J. H. Han, Y. Matsui1, N. Nagaosa & Y. Tokura, Vol 465| 17 June 2010| doi:10.1038/nature09124