A spin model for investigating chirality

Spin chirality has generated great interest recently both from possible applications to flux phases and intrinsically, as an example of a several-site magnetic order parameter that can be long ranged even where simpler order parameters are not. Previous work (motivated by the flux phases) has focused on antiferromagnetic chiral order; we construct a model in which the chirality orders ferromagnetically and investigate the model's behaviour as a function of spin. Enlisting the aid of exact diagonalization, spin waves, perturbation theory, and mean fields, we conclude that the model probably has long-ranged chiral order for spin 1 and greater and no non-trivial chiral order for spin 1/2 .