  Magnetic skyrmions have the potential to provide solutions for low-power,
high-density data storage and processing. One of the major challenges in
developing skyrmion-based devices is the skyrmions' magnetic stability in
confined helimagnetic nanostructures. Through a systematic study of equilibrium
states, using a full three-dimensional micromagnetic model including
demagnetisation effects, we demonstrate that skyrmionic textures are the lowest
energy states in helimagnetic thin film nanostructures at zero external
magnetic field and in absence of magnetocrystalline anisotropy. We also report
the regions of metastability for non-ground state equilibrium configurations.
We show that bistable skyrmionic textures undergo hysteretic behaviour between
two energetically equivalent skyrmionic states with different core orientation,
even in absence of both magnetocrystalline and demagnetisation-based shape
anisotropies, suggesting the existence of Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya-based shape
anisotropy. Finally, we show that the skyrmionic texture core reversal dynamics
is facilitated by the Bloch point occurrence and propagation.
