text:
# MESON2000 Conference Summary lite Presented at MESON2000 (Cracow, 19-23 May 2000)

## 1 Hadrons and the Last 600 Years of European History

I was very happy to accept an invitation from H.Machner to give the summary talk for MESON2000. However I was quickly surprised and somewhat dismayed by many of the plenary talks, which discussed meson physics from viewpoints with which I was only vaguely familiar. A second theme of this meeting, beginning with Prof. Jarczek’s welcoming talk, was the 600th anniversary of the refounding of the Jagellonian University, and its place in Polish and European history. Late one night, while puzzling over how to reduce this rather broad meeting to a few remarks, the random thought occurred to me that it would be easier to summarize the last 600 years of European history than to summarize this conference. And, like many wild ideas, this one would not go away. So, please bear with me through Fig.1.

One can learn several interesting things from Fig.1. The first is that, in physics at least, we have made considerable progress. At the beginning of this timeline scholars were mainly concerned with theological considerations that were not amenable to experimental confirmation. With the reestablishment of European universities and recovery of classical texts, physicists again turned to the study of astronomy, which led to a precise formulation of classical mechanics in the 17th century. The copy of De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (Copernicus) which many of us have seen here in Cracow is a stirring reminder of the work of our antecedents in this field. To my mind European culture peaked in the 18th century Age of Enlightenment, both in the development of scientific attitudes and socially, in fields as disparate as government (Jefferson), history (Gibbon), literature (Goethe) and music (Mozart). With the emergence of the romantic movement in the 19th century, a general decline was evident; theories of government became more radical, nationalism became fashionable in Europe, and music and literature increasingly reflected the social problems of the age. To quote Wittgenstein regarding music, as early as Brahms ‘I can begin to hear the sound of machinery.’ . Physics nonetheless continued dramatic advances, due in part to developments in this machinery and in mathematics, and the 19th century saw major achievements in the establishment of the theories of electromagnetism and classical thermodynamics. Finally, in the 20th century Europe entered very troubled times indeed, from which we are only now emerging. One should note that good things can arise even in times of adversity, such as the reappearance of an independent Poland in 1919. Physics also went through crises at the beginning of the 20th century, but we must all agree that the resulting quantum physics and relativity are two of the most exciting and fascinating developments in the field.

Against this 600 year historical background the development of hadron physics has been strikingly rapid. The identification of the compact atomic nucleus, the home of most terrestrial hadrons, was due to Rutherford in 1911. The identification of the positively charged proton, the first known hadron, can also be dated to about 1911. The first meson to be identified was the pion, found by Lattes et al. in 1947 (in cosmic rays), and it had been anticipated by Yukawa as the carrier of the strong nuclear force. The familiar light mesons $`K`$, $`\rho `$, $`\omega `$ etc were found in the late 1950s to early 1960s, and the identification of these and the light baryons suggested the quark model to Zweig, Gell-Mann and Ne’emann in about 1963. The identification of QCD as the theory of the strong interaction, in 1973, was due mainly to its property of asymptotic freedom, which had been observed at SLAC in the late 1960s. The crucial confining property of QCD was at the time regarded as an unproven conjecture, and is still poorly understood. The mid to late 1970s saw the experimental establishment of the charm and beauty families of hadrons, the first searches for glueballs, and the development of new theoretical techniques such as LGT. The remarkable QCD predictions of glueballs and exotic mesons have taken longer to test experimentally, and the more widely accepted experimental candidates for these states were identified in the middle 1990s. This short time scale is most reassuring; in Fig.1 we can see that almost all the progress in strong interaction physics has been made in the last 10% of the timeline, and the study of QCD itself occupies only the final 5%.

And finally, as if to close the circle, at the end of the millennium many theoreticians have again turned to theological speculations which are not amenable to experimental confirmation.

## 2 The Many Phases of the Meson Community

After the first few plenary talks I was confirmed in my suspicion that hadron physics, even meson physics, is a very broad field with clearly identifiable communities that have little overlap. Since much of the work in contributing to a new field involves learning the field’s terminology or “jargon”, one can identify the different communities by the rate of recurrence of characteristic words or expressions in research papers or presentations at conferences.

Two obvious communities in nonperturbative QCD are the effective lagrangian / chiral symmetry specialists (to whom the pion is the most interesting meson) and the hadron spectroscopists (to whom it is not). As a test of the idea of separating these groups by their use of language, I invented an order parameter which I call “physicist chirality” $`(𝒫𝒞)`$ to distinguish them. $`𝒫𝒞`$ is defined by the number of times a plenary speaker used the word “chiral” compared to the exotica words “glueball”, “hybrid” or “exotic”,

$$𝒫𝒞=\frac{N_{chiral}N_{exotica}}{N_{chiral}+N_{exotica}}.$$
(1)
This quantity is $`1`$ for a purely exotic physicist and $`+1`$ for a purely chiral physicist. I had expected to find an interesting distribution of $`𝒫𝒞`$ in this meeting, so I applied it to the first 18 plenary speakers. The result, shown in Fig.2, is rather disturbing. One sees clear evidence of “phase separation” in the presence of two almost completely disjoint communities in meson physics!

For those who are keeping score, the two extreme cases on an absolute scale were W.Weise (39 uses of chiral) and A.Szczepaniak (over 29 uses of exotic). There were also 0/0 scores (recorded at 0), which suggested additional phases; eventually I identified five subconferences at MESON2000, which are summarized in the following section.

## 3 The index of plenary speakers and their conferences

### 3.1 The Condensed Matter Hadron Conference

This subdiscipline of meson physics considers the pion to be the most interesting of mesons because it is the lowest-lying excitation, in condensed matter jargon the “gap mode”. In this field one discusses hadrons in terms of the $`q\overline{q}`$ “order parameter”, writes effective lagrangians for pions and nucleons, and derives the resulting low-energy scattering amplitudes and in-medium properties. Apparently part of the game is to borrow as much of the condensed matter viewpoint and jargon as possible, and use it in a hadronic context. (I am not being entirely frivolous about what appears to me to be an exercise in borrowing jargon, since I actually work in condensed matter physics .)

Our first plenary speakers Weise, Thomas and (rather surprisingly for an impartial experimentalist) Nefkens identified themselves as belonging to this community through their frequent references to chiral symmetry and order parameters. Mosel, Senger, Grioni, Cassing and Oset also participated in this subconference, which was largely concerned with prospects for seeing mass shifts e.g. of kaons, nucleons and vector mesons in medium, and in-medium corrections to other processes, such as $`\pi \pi `$ scattering. In these talks one could often hear loan words from condensed matter, extending in extreme cases to “spectral functions” and even “good quasiparticle”, which is a rather imprecise notion even in quantum magnetism.

Throughout I confess to having a feeling that we need one very clear, unambiguous experimental observation of a hadronic in-medium mass shift in a relatively narrow state, such as the $`\omega `$, before this work on mass shifts can be regarded as supported by experiment; the inclusive distribution of dilepton mass pairs, composed of many hypothetical broad contributions, seems less than convincing. Cassing noted in particular that there are several interesting prospects for observing $`\omega `$ mass shifts.

Experiment has not contributed much to this field “in-vacuum” recently, largely because the favored topics of low energy $`\pi \pi `$ and $`\pi N`$ scattering were studied long ago, albeit not with especially good statistics in $`\pi \pi `$. At this meeting however we heard plans for two new relevant measurements. One is a determination of the $`a_2a_0`$ $`\pi \pi `$ scattering length difference using $`\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$ atoms, discussed by Gianotti. There are dispersion relations known as the Roy equations that purportedly constrain these quantities accurately, so this will be a useful measurement. The second (at DAPHNE, discussed here by Lauss) is a measurement of $`\overline{K}N`$ $`a_0`$ and $`a_1`$ scattering lengths, similarly using radiative transitions in the hadronic atom.

### 3.2 The Good Auld Hadrons Conference

This second subconference was concerned with “good auld hadrons”, by which I mean low energy reactions and the spectroscopy of reasonably well established quark model states. There was a large experimental component from the various few-GeV facilities that are studying these processes. Meson production near threshold, especially as accessible at COSY, was discussed by Speth. The interesting topics here are the various possible mechanisms for $`\pi `$ and $`\eta `$ production and the recurring question of the physical size of the $`qqq`$ “quark core” in a baryon. Haberzettl gave a clear review of the complications of electroproduction amplitudes, in particular in the production of associated strangeness at CEBAF. Filippi told us about OZI violation in $`P\overline{P}`$ annihilation, especially in the final state $`\varphi \pi `$, and discussed ways of distinguishing between intrinsic strangeness and rescattering effects such as $`K^{}\overline{K}\varphi \pi `$. Moskal discussed $`PPPPf`$ at COSY-11, where $`f=\pi ,\eta ,\eta ^{}`$ and $`K^+K^{}`$, and noted the importance of ISI and the possibility of measuring the $`P\eta ^{}`$ scattering length. Salaburn discussed $`PPPPf`$ at DISTO, where one can also study $`f=\rho ,\omega ,\varphi `$. He noted that one may test hidden-$`s\overline{s}`$ components using polarized $`PPPP\varphi `$, and also that the $`PPPK^+\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ data supports a simple $`K`$-exchange picture. Ströyer discussed baryon resonance production and decays, and noted that such a programme at COSY using $`P`$ beams would be a useful complement to the various photon facilities now planned or in operation. Niskanen discussed the origin of isospin violation effects in nucleon-nucleon scattering and suggested channels in which these effects may be largest. Klimala considered meson production in $`PD`$ collisions and discussed how one might test models such as intermediate $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ production. Eyrich discussed prospects for strangeness production at COSY using TOF, including $`K\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ (current), $`N^{}`$s (possible in future), and the very interesting but long neglected $`Z^{}`$ exotic flavor channels (in particular the sector $`uu\overline{d}\overline{d}s`$). Kupse summarized future plans for CELSIUS/WASA, which include rare $`\pi ^o`$ and $`\eta `$ decays, including the processes $`\eta \pi ^o\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$ (I violating, of interest in $`\chi `$PT) and $`\eta \gamma \pi ^+\pi ^{}`$ (for which VMD and $`\chi `$PT give rather different predictions). Finally, Braccini reviewed the very interesting results on $`\gamma \gamma `$ couplings of $`n\overline{n}`$, $`s\overline{s}`$ and $`c\overline{c}`$ resonances which have come from LEP and Cornell recently. These results include observations of the possible radial excitations $`\eta (1440)`$ and $`a_2^{}(1752)`$, and in $`\gamma \gamma ^{}`$ evidence for the light axials $`f_1(1285)`$ and $`f_1(1440)`$ and the $`\eta _c`$, which is apparently produced through $`J/\psi `$ vector dominance.

### 3.3 The Exotica Conference

The subject of non-$`q\overline{q}`$ mesons, the so-called “exotica”, has seen exciting developments of late, with the announcement of glueball and spin-parity exotic candidates. This, I admit, was the conference I attended.

Barnes first gave a review of exotic mesons (exotic meaning having quantum numbers forbidden to conventional $`q\overline{q}`$ states). We now have two light exotic candidates, the $`\pi _1(1400)`$ (BNL, Crystal Barrel, VES) and $`\pi _1(1600)`$ (BNL, VES). Unfortunately it may be too soon to celebrate, since LGT predicts that the $`1^+`$ exotic level should lie at about 2.0 GeV, much higher than reported. Klempt discussed glueballs, in particular the various states in the $`0^{++}`$ sector. These include the Crystal Barrel candidate $`f_0(1500)`$, the possibility of a single very broad scalar “der Rote Drache”, and various models of scalar mixing and decays. Szczepaniak summarized the CEBAF HallD project, which is a proposed high-statistics meson photoproduction experiment for the study of light exotic and $`s\overline{s}`$ meson spectroscopy. Willutski reviewed results from BNL E852, including evidence for the $`\pi _1(1590)`$, and in $`\omega \eta `$ for a $`1^+`$ $`h_1(1590)`$ and a $`1^{}`$ $`\omega (1650)`$. Note that the $`h_1(1590)`$ is considerably lighter than expected by Godfrey and Isgur for a 2P state. Close reviewed his very interesting work on the exchanged angular quantum numbers and $`Q_i^2`$ dependences in diffractive meson production, which can be used as a “discriminator” between $`q\overline{q}`$ and $`G`$ candidates. Clearly something very important about diffraction has been discovered here, although just what is as yet unclear. Peters restricted himself to the “past, present and future” of meson spectroscopy, including the 10th anniversary of the Crystal Ball $`3\pi ^o`$ Dalitz plot, developments in exotics, the importance of high statistics, complications in analyses, scalars, D decays, … and future facilities. Finally, Stefanski reviewed results from the charm photoproduction experiment E791 at Fermilab, and noted that the $`3\pi `$ Dalitz plots from $`D^+`$ and $`D_s^+`$ show evidence for strong isobar contributions, including $`\rho \pi `$, $`f_0\pi `$ $`f_2\pi `$ and $`\sigma \pi `$. The interesting evidence of FSI effects in the complex relative phases of these states was also noted.

### 3.4 The HEP Conference

Subconference 4 (on HEP) was the shortest, with just two plenary contributions. These contributions could be identified by the fact that the hadrons were clearly considered non-essential complications to the interesting physics. The first HEP contribution was by Sciaba, who summarized the status of the search for $`B_s^o\overline{B}_s^o`$ mixing. This has not yet been observed, but the limits are now rather close to theoretical expectations, “watch this spot”. Next, Fleischer reviewed the general subject of CP violation in B decays in impressive detail, and suggested several final states which may be of interest in future experimental studies.

### 3.5 The Photon-Hadron Conference

The final subconference I identified, with six plenary contributions, was on photon-hadron interactions. (Braccini’s two-photon talk might also be listed here as a seventh contribution.) The first contribution was by Levi Sandri, who reviewed the baryon resonance program at GRAAL, and noted some interesting results, such as the fact that the $`D_{13}(1520)`$ $`A_{3/2}/A_{1/2}`$ ratio does not agree well with Capstick and Isgur’s quark model predictions. Bruncko reviewed DESY results on vector photoproduction of $`\rho `$, $`\omega `$, $`\varphi `$, $`\psi `$, $`\psi ^{}`$ and $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$. A remarkable “universal curve” of electroproduction cross sections versus $`Q^2`$ was shown for these states. Steffens reviewed polarized deep inelastic scattering at HERMES, especially the “semi-inclusive” processes $`\gamma ^{}P\rho ,\omega ,\varphi ,\psi ,\mathrm{{\rm Y}}+X`$, tests of SCHC, production mechanisms and parton distributions. Arends reviewed the status of the DHG sum rule and concluded that there is no indication of disagreement with experiment. Nikolaev discussed diffractive electroproduction of vector mesons and the interesting possibility of distinguishing 2S from D states through their different $`Q^2`$ dependences. And finally, Muccifora discussed charged and neutral $`\pi `$ electroproduction at HERMES, which can be used to test the $`Q^2`$ evolution of fragmentation functions. These results included surprising evidence of possible isospin symmetry violation above $`z=0.7`$.

## 4 Personal Favorites

Although there were many interesting results presented at the meeting, I would like to take advantage of my rôle as summary speaker to cite what seemed to me personally to be the single most remarkable new experimental and theoretical results.

In experiment: The “universal curve” for the $`Q^2`$ dependence of vector meson electroproduction appears to be a very suggestive observation, and presumably tells us something very general about hadron electromagnetic couplings. Does this establish a vector dominance picture over direct photon-quark pQCD amplitudes? If so, most quark model calculations of resonance photoproduction and electroproduction amplitudes may be inaccurate! The question of just what this result teaches us should clearly be pursued.

In theory: Close has found remarkably simple and accurate results for diffractive scattering amplitudes, using an almost conserved vector coupling model; this is telling us something profound about the long standing issue of just what the “pomeron” is at the quark-gluon level. As with many interesting discoveries, it is not yet clear what these results mean, but they suggest that progress in this long-standing question may now be possible.

## 5 Feynman Story

At this conference, the question of the limits of usefulness of various models must have occurred to many of the attendees. This story gives some indication as to Feynman’s attitude to the use of models in hadron physics.

In about 1974 as a new Caltech graduate student I was looking for an interesting thesis topic. This was an exciting period with many new developments in physics, such as supersymmetry, string theory, the parton model, non-Abelian gauge theories, compact objects in astrophysics and so forth. Although I was initially interested in rather formal problems in quantum gravity, the very practical and skeptical research atmosphere at Caltech strongly encouraged graduate students to study topics that led to direct comparison with experiment. Since QCD had just been proposed, and a group at MIT had just published their first paper on the “bag model” which showed that one could derive many experimentally observable properties of light hadrons quite simply using quark and gluon “cavity resonator” modes, I began work on this model and suggested it as a thesis topic to my advisor Jon Mathews. Since Mathews was a rather pure mathematical physicist, he was unenthusiastic. He suggested however that I talk to Feynman about this work, since Feynman had heard about the model at a meeting and had since worked out many of its predictions for hadrons himself. I found that Feynman, unlike Mathews, was very interested in and excited by what could be derived in this simple model; so much so that I rather courageously asked him if he would tell Mathews that the study of this model was a suitable thesis topic. The resulting transition from initial to final states is shown in Fig.3 below (this is a Feynman diagram in which Feynman actually appears).

As usual, precisely what took place within the circle is unknown, but much can be inferred from the initial and final states. In this case, in the initial state $`|Mathews_i`$ the MIT bag model was not a suitable Ph.D. thesis topic, and in the final state $`|Mathews_f`$ it was a suitable topic. Although the details of the interaction were not observed, $`|Mathews_f`$ made statements to the effect that the study of models is useful in hadron physics because one can abstract model-independent features. I presume that this is the justification Feynman gave to Mathews. This has indeed proven to be the case for the bag model, since it was the first to predict a light $`J^{PC}=1^+`$ exotic meson; this exotic has been found by all subsequent approaches, including LGT. We now have two experimental exotic meson candidates with these quantum numbers, which were discussed in detail at this meeting, and the general topic of “exotica” is now widely considered the most interesting subject in light hadron spectroscopy.

In summary, each model is wrong in detail, but they may nonetheless contain some common physical truth.

## 6 Acknowledgements

It is a great pleasure to thank the organisers for their kind invitation to summarize the many conferences of Meson 2000. This research was supported in part by the DOE Division of Nuclear Physics, at ORNL, managed by UT-Battelle, LLC, for the US Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725, and by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft DFG at the University of Bonn and the Forschungszentrum Jülich under contract Bo 56/153-1.


format: text

text:
# Effects of magnetic field induced chiral-spin interactions on quasi-one-dimensional spin systems

## I introduction

Quasi-one dimensional quantum spin systems have long been known to exhibit a spectrum of behaviours, ranging from the gapless critical behaviour in spin-$`\frac{1}{2}`$ integer systems, to gapped spin Peierls systems and Haldane phases in integer spin systems. The effect of an external magnetic field is usually described through the Pauli coupling ($`𝐡𝐒`$) of the spins to the field. These fields can have dramatic effects on the spin systems. For example, in gapped spin systems, the magnetic field induces the commensurate-incommensurate (C-IC) transition, where the IC phase is characterized by gapless spin excitations described by a Luttinger liquid and the corresponding spin correlation functions exhibit power law behaviours whose exponents, however, vary from system to system. However, it is important to remember that in real materials, the spins are electrons whose charge degrees of freedom are frozen by strong electron-electron interactions. In a physical system, the magnetic field couples not only to the spin degrees of freedom, via the Pauli term, but also to the orbital degrees of freedom of the electrons. This results in non-trivial additions to the effective spin hamiltonian. In fact, it is known that in the limit of large Coulomb repulsion, this coupling can in principle induce a three spin chiral interaction between neighbouring spins . Such a term arises in two dimensional systems on the triangular and Kagome lattices. These chiral terms also arise in certain quasi one dimensional systems like zig-zag ladders, frustrated ladders, spin tubes, saw tooth chains, etc, whose geometries permit the formation of a closed plaquette involving three neighbouring spins. The possible generation of such chiral terms in quasi-one dimensional spin systems stemming from the underlying electronic nature of realistic models has been systematically overlooked in the literature. In this paper, we show that these chiral terms are indeed relevant and can change the behaviour of certain spin systems like spin-tubes and zig-zag ladders in magnetic fields. The possible effects engendered by these terms should be studied before sensible comparisons with experiments in a magnetic field can be made. Another important motivation is that the effects of these chiral interactions depend strongly on the direction of the applied field, and could be detected experimentally in measurements of various quantities ranging from specific heat, NMR rates and dynamical structure factor measurements.

One class of systems, where the chiral term will surely be relevant are systems which support chiral excitations in zero field. Examples are the recently studied zig-zag spin $`s`$ ladders  where certain parity breaking interactions induce spin nematic ground states in zero magnetic field and spin tubes , whose ground states have chiral properties in the absence of a magnetic field. These spin tubes were also shown to exhibit an interesting C-IC transition where the IC phase is described by a two component Luttinger liquid describing gapless spin and chiral excitations. In these systems, the new field induced chiral term can completely alter the physics expected from the Pauli coupling alone. Normally, since we do not know of physical probes which couple directly to the chirality, it is quite hard to perceive experimentally the chiral aspects of the ground state. However, the competition between the chiral term and the Pauli coupling of the spins to an external magnetic field can be exploited to obtain experimental signals of chirality in certain systems. The main objective of this paper is to study the influence of these chiral terms on the gapless incommensurate phases of certain spin systems. These are especially pertinent given the surfeit of experiments on spin systems in strong magnetic fields.

The paper is organised as follows: we first outline the derivation of the chiral spin term starting from the Hubbard model. We then study the effect of this term on the spin-tube and other quasi-one dimensional systems, in the limit of strong planar interchain couplings. We then discuss the very interesting example of the effects of the chiral interaction on the weakly coupled zig-zag ladder, where the magnetic field induced chiral interaction triggers a transition in the spin singlet sector. Finally, we conclude with a discussion of the experimental consequences of this interaction.

## II chiral interaction

In the presence of an external magnetic field, it is customary to only consider the Pauli interaction. However, this completely ignores the coupling of the field to the orbital part of the motion which can result in non-trivial corrections to the effective spin hamiltonian. We start by considering a system of interacting electrons described by a Hubbard model

$$H=\underset{ij}{}t_{ij}[c_i^{}c_j+h.c.]+U\underset{i}{}n_in_i,$$
(1)
where the first term describes the hopping of electrons with spin $`\sigma `$ from sites $`i`$ to $`j`$ and the second, the on-site Coulomb repulsion between electrons. The Pauli coupling of the electronic spins $`𝐒`$ to the external magnetic field $`𝐡`$ is given by $`\mu _0g𝐡𝐒`$, where $`\mu _0=|e|\mathrm{}/2mc`$ is the Bohr magneton and the gyromagnetic ratio $`g2`$. Hereafter we set $`g\mu _0=1`$. The magnetic field also couples to the electronic motion via the hopping matrix elements $`t_{ij}`$, which become complex, i.e., it picks up a phase $`t_{ij}t_{ij}\mathrm{exp}[ie_i^j𝐀𝑑𝐫]`$, where, $`𝐀`$ is the vector potential associated with the external field $`𝐡`$. If the electron hops around a closed loop, we immediately see that the net hopping matrix element is proportional to the magnetic flux enclosed by the loop. Since an external magnetic field explicitly breaks time reversal invariance, it is interesting to study whether time reversal violating terms are generated in the spin hamiltonian in the large $`U`$ limit. At second order in perturbation theory, no parity breaking terms are generated and one obtains only the Heisenberg term $`𝐒_i𝐒_j`$. Chiral terms, can therefore, be obtained only in higher order perturbation theory. An example of a chiral term which respects all spin symmetries and yet violates time reversal and parity, is the triple product of three spins $`𝐒_i.𝐒_j\times 𝐒_k`$. Is such a term generated within the Hubbard model with nearest neighbour hopping $`t`$ in the presence of an external magnetic field ? At half filling, it can be shown that no parity and time-reversal violating terms are induced on bipartite lattices . However, on non-bipartite lattices, such a term is explicitly generated at order $`U^2`$ in perturbation.

$$H_{chiral}=\frac{24t^3}{U^2}\mathrm{sin}(e\mathrm{\Phi })\underset{ijk}{}𝐒_i.𝐒_j\times 𝐒_k$$
(2)
where the summation is over sets of nearest neighbour sites which form triangles. We have restricted ourselves to nearest neighbour hopping $`t`$ in the above. $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ is the flux enclosed by the plaquette formed by the sites $`i,j`$ and $`k`$. In terms of the magnitude of the field $`h`$, $`\mathrm{\Phi }=Ah\mathrm{cos}(\theta )`$ where $`A`$ is the area of the plaquette and $`\theta `$ is the angle made by the magnetic field with respect to the normal to the plane of the plaquette. Substituting this in (2), we see that no chiral term is generated for magnetic fields applied parallel to the plane of the plaquette. Additionally, the strength of the chiral term varies from a minimum to a maximum as a function of the direction of the applied field. For real materials, the typical area enclosed by these triangles and hence the enclosed flux being very small, the $`\mathrm{sin}(e\mathrm{\Phi })`$ term in (2) can be expanded to yield

$$H_{chiral}=\frac{24t^3}{U^2}eAh\mathrm{cos}\theta \underset{ijk}{}𝐒_i.𝐒_j\times 𝐒_k$$
(3)
Since the chiral term is generated at higher order, its strength is lesser than the Heisenberg exchange as well as the Pauli interaction. Despite this, it was shown  that in certain cases the chiral term may have a larger effect on the ground state than the Pauli coupling of electron spins to the external magnetic field, thereby drastically affecting the ground state properties of the model. One example is the case where the ground state of the system in zero field is doubly degenerate with opposite chiralities. Then, when an external magnetic field is applied, in addition to the effects of the Pauli term, the chiral degeneracy is broken by (3). The effect could be more pronounced in the case where the ground states are degenerate chiral singlets because here, though the chiral term still breaks the degeneracy, the Pauli interaction term has no effect on the ground state for fields smaller than the singlet-triplet gap.

Since, no chiral interactions are generated for fields applied parallel to the plane of the triangular plaquettes, the behaviour of the system could, in principle, be different depending on whether the field is applied parallel or perpendicular to the plane of the system. This is especially relevant for the critical behaviours in the IC phase, where exponents could show a variation with the field direction. Such a behaviour, provides us with a physical handle for determining whether an isotropic spin system is quasi-one dimensional or not i.e., if the behaviour is different for the two directions of the field, one can presume that this difference stems from chiral interactions which necessarily require the system to be atleast quasi-one dimensional!

## III  Strongly Coupled spin tubes and ladders

In this section, we discuss the effects of the chiral term on the IC phase of certain strongly coupled spin-gap systems, whose geometry allows for the existence of chiral terms in a magnetic field. In the absence of chiral interactions, the behaviour of these systems in the IC phase, has been well studied and catalogued in the literature. As we will show below, the chiral term does not necessarily alter the nature of the incommensurate phase always. The effects of the chiral interaction are drastic or trivial depending on the nature of the ground and excited states of the system.

### A Spin tubes

The first example we consider is the strongly coupled spin tube (i.e. a three-leg ladder with periodic boundary conditions) studied in Ref.. As already mentioned spin tubes, exhibit a new class of C-IC behaviour. Starting from the limit of strong-rung coupling (see Fig.1), the low-energy effective Hamiltonian (LEH) describing the gapless incommensurate phase with finite magnetization was derived in Ref.. This low energy Hamiltonian was that of a two-component Luttinger liquid describing gapless spin and chiral excitations in the system. The existence of a two-component Luttinger liquid phase has important physical consequences. Namely, it implies that both chiral and magnetic excitations contribute to a non-zero magnetic susceptibility and a strongly enhanced $`T`$-linear specific heat. This different behaviour stems basically from the presence of a degenerate ground state with different chiralities, within an isolated triangle. This immediately poses the interesting question, what is the effect of the chiral interaction (3) on the two component Luttinger liquid behaviour? Clearly, we expect the chiral term (3) to induce dramatic changes, because it will break the degeneracy of the ground state. To see this, we derive the low-energy effective Hamiltonian for the spin tube in the presence of the chiral interaction (3). We will use this effective theory to discuss the physics of the IC phase and the resulting spin-spin correlation functions.

The Hamiltonian of the spin tube in the presence of an external magnetic field $`𝐡`$ and a spin-chiral interaction is given by,

$$H=\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}\underset{p=1}{\overset{3}{}}(J𝐒_{i,p}𝐒_{i+1,p}+J_{}𝐒_{i,p}𝐒_{i,p+1}𝐡𝐒_{\mathrm{i},\mathrm{p}})+\mu _\mathrm{c}\mathrm{h}\underset{\mathrm{i}=1}{\overset{\mathrm{N}}{}}𝐒_{\mathrm{i},1}(𝐒_{\mathrm{i},2}\times 𝐒_{\mathrm{i},3}),$$
(4)
where $`(i,p)`$ denote the site and chain indices respectively and periodic boundary conditions imply that the site $`(i,4)`$ is identified with the site $`(i,1)`$. The first two terms represent the spin Hamiltonian for the spin tube, the third the Pauli coupling of the spins to the magnetic field and the last term is the chiral term derived earlier. $`J`$ is the coupling along the chain, $`J_{}`$ the transverse coupling between the chains and, $`\mu _c=\frac{24t^3}{U^2}eA\mathrm{cos}\theta `$ is the strength of the spin-chiral interaction. As in Ref., we consider the limit $`J_{}J`$. In this limit, the properties of the system can be studied by perturbing in $`J`$ around the limit of decoupled triangles. For $`J=0`$, the system consists of independent triangles. The eight states of a given triangle split into two spin-$`\frac{1}{2}`$ doublet ground states, with energy $`E_s=3J_{}/4`$ and an excited spin-$`\frac{3}{2}`$ quadruplet, with energy $`E_t=3J_{}/4`$. The spin doublet ground state has chiral eigenvalues $`\pm `$. For strong magnetic fields applied parallel to the plane of the triangle, no chiral terms are generated. Consequently, the degeneracy in the ground state is only partially lifted and one reverts back to the case studied in Ref.. On the other hand, for fields perpendicular to the plane of the triangle, the ensuing Pauli and the spin-chiral terms lift all the degeneracies. For instance, for the spin doublet states, the Pauli and chiral terms contribute $`\pm h/2`$ and $`\pm \mu _c\sqrt{3}/4`$ respectively, to the energy . Note, however, that the chiral term has no effect on the ferromagnetic spin $`\frac{3}{2}`$ excited states. This is expected since the chiral term, which is nothing but a triple product, has a non-zero expectation value only for non-collinear spin configurations. Therefore, for the field applied in the $`z`$ direction, the resulting energies are

$`\stackrel{~}{E}_t`$ $`=`$ $`E_thm_{3/2}`$
$`\stackrel{~}{E}_s`$ $`=`$ $`E_shm_{1/2}{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{3}\mu _ch}{4}}`$
Here $`m_s`$ just refers to the $`S_z`$ value of the state considered. There exists a critical field $`h_c`$, such that for $`h<h_c`$ the ground state has magnetisation $`m=\frac{1}{2}`$ and for $`h>h_c`$ the ground state has $`m=\frac{3}{2}`$. In the absence of chiral interactions, the critical field $`h_c`$ required to close the gap is given by $`h_c=E_tE_s=3J_{}/2`$. However, in the presence of chiral interactions, the critical field is slightly increased and is given

$$h_c=\frac{(E_tE_s)}{1\frac{\sqrt{3}\mu _c}{4}}\frac{3J_{}}{2\frac{\sqrt{3}\mu _c}{2}}$$
(5)
We therefore see that the chiral interaction changes the magnitude of $`h_c`$ in a subtle way. Note also that the magnitude of the critical field depends on the direction of the applied field. It is minimum for a field applied in the plane of the triangle i.e., $`x`$ direction where $`h_c=3J_{}/2`$ and is maximum for the field in the $`z`$ direction. A small non-zero value of the coupling $`J`$, broadens the abrupt transition from a state with $`m=\frac{1}{2}`$ to $`m=\frac{3}{2}`$. This results in two critical fields $`H_{c1}`$ (where the $`m=\frac{1}{2}`$ state stops being the ground state ) and $`H_{c2}`$ (where the magnetisation saturates at $`m=\frac{3}{2}`$ corresponding to a ferromagnetic state) with the magnetisation varying smoothly in between. The difference $`H_{c2}H_{c1}`$ is of the order of the coupling $`J`$. We now write an effective hamiltonian describing the low energy physics of the spin tube close to the critical magnetic field. Since at $`h_c`$ the $`m_s=\frac{3}{2}`$ state becomes degenerate with only one of the chiral states with $`m_s=\frac{1}{2}`$ we retain only these two states per site :

$`\alpha _{\frac{3}{2}}`$ $`=`$ $`|`$ (6)
$`\alpha _{\frac{1}{2}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}}[|+j|+j^2|]`$ (7)
where $`j=\mathrm{exp}(2\pi i/3)`$. We now introduce a pseudo-spin half operator $`𝐓`$ which acts on the subspace containing the above two states. By inspection, we can rewrite the original spin operators $`𝐒`$ in terms of $`𝐓`$ i.e.,

$`S_{i,p}^+`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{j^{p1}}{\sqrt{3}}}T_i^+`$ (8)
$`S_{i,p}^z`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}(1+T_i^z)`$ (9)
Using this, the effective hamiltonian, to first order in the coupling between the triangles is now given by

$$H_{eff.}=\frac{J}{2}\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}(T_i^+T_{i+1}^{}+T_i^{}T_{i+1}^+)+\frac{J}{3}\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}T_i^zT_{i+1}^zh_{eff.}\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}T_i^z$$
(10)
where $`h_{eff}=hh_c\frac{2J}{3}`$ and contains the effects of chirality. The previous derivation is equivalent to that of the low-energy effective Hamiltonian for three coplanar spin-$`\frac{1}{2}`$ chains considered in Ref.. The model (10) is the simple XXZ chain in a magnetic field. Since the coefficient of the $`z`$ component of the interaction is smaller than that of the transverse components, we see that the above system corresponds to that of the XXZ chain in its gapless phase. A lot is known about the model and results for the exponents of various correlation functions as a function of the applied field can be obtained from Ref..

Using the Jordan-Wigner transformation we fermionize (10), to obtain

$$H_{\mathrm{eff}.}=\frac{J}{2}\underset{i}{}[c_i^+c_{i+1}+h.c.]+\frac{J}{3}\underset{i}{}n_in_{i+1}\mu \underset{i}{}n_i+\mathrm{const}.$$
(11)
$`\mu =hh_cJ/3`$. The values of the critical fields $`H_{c1}`$ and $`H_{c2}`$ for the spin-tube can now be obtained from the effective model (11). When $`h=H_{c1}`$, the band of spinless fermions is empty. This occurs when the chemical potential $`\mu `$ equals the band minimum i.e., when $`\mu =J`$ which in turn yields $`H_{c1}=h_c2J/3`$. Similarly, $`H_{c2}`$ corresponds to a completely filled band of electrons or equivalently an empty band of holes. The simplest way to describe this situation is to perform a particle-hole transformation on the Hamiltonian (11): $`c_i^{}`$ $`h_i.`$ Up to a constant, the new Hamiltonian reads:

$$H_{\mathrm{eff}.}^h=\frac{J}{2}\underset{i}{}[h_i^+h_{i+1}+h.c.]+\frac{J}{3}\underset{i}{}n_i^hn_{i+1}^h\mu _h\underset{i}{}n_i^h$$
(12)
where the chemical potential $`\mu _h=\mu +2J/3`$ . In terms of holes, $`H_{c2}`$ corresponds again to the chemical potential where the band stars to fill up, thus we find $`H_{c2}=h_c+2J/3`$.

The Hamiltonian (10) can be easily bosonized to obtain the various correlation functions and exponents in the incommensurate phase. Using the standard expressions for bosonization

$`T_z(x)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi }}_x\varphi +(1)^{\frac{x}{a}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{cos}2\varphi (x)}{\pi a}}`$ (13)
$`T_+(x)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2\pi a}}}e^{i\theta }[(1)^{\frac{x}{a}}+\mathrm{cos}2\varphi (x)]`$ (14)
we obtain the following continuum theory

$$=\frac{1}{2\pi }𝑑x[uK(\pi \mathrm{\Pi })^2+(\frac{u}{K})(_x\varphi )^2]+\frac{1}{\pi }𝑑xh_{eff}_x\varphi ,$$
(15)
where $`\mathrm{\Pi }`$ is the momentum conjugate to the field $`\varphi `$ where $`u=\frac{\pi }{2}\frac{\sqrt{J^2J_z^2}}{\mathrm{cos}^1(\frac{J_z}{J})}`$ is the spin wave velocity, and

$$2K=[1\frac{1}{\pi }\mathrm{cos}^1(\frac{J_z}{J})]^1$$
(16)
This indicates clearly that in the presence of chiral interactions, the spin tube in the IC phase, behaves as a one-component Luttinger liquid, describing spinless excitations alone. In the absence of the chiral term, both spin and chiral excitations were gapless which then led to the two component Luttinger liquid behaviour. Here, we see that the effect of the chiral term is to open a gap for the chiral excitations, which then do not contribute to the low energy behaviour. The magnetic field term, described by the gradient in (15), can be eliminated by a simple shift of the $`\varphi `$ field i.e., $`\varphi \varphi +\pi mx`$ where the magnetisation $`mh_{eff}K/u`$. For small values of the field $`h_{eff}`$, the effective magnetisation $`m`$ increases linearly with $`h`$. This field shift results in the appearance of incommensurate modes in the spin-spin correlation functions. Note that $`K`$ varies from $`K=1`$ for the case of the XX- antiferromagnet to $`K=\frac{1}{2}`$ for the isotropic XXX system. For the present problem, $`J_z=J/3`$ resulting in $`K=0.83`$ and $`u=1.2J`$. It is well known that for this value of $`K`$ the system is gapless and lies in the XXZ universality class. However, due to presence of marginal operators in the theory, the Luttinger parameter $`K`$ now varies with the magnetisation. This variation depends also on the anisotropy $`J_z/J=1/3`$ and can be obtained numerically using the Bethe ansatz equations of Ref..

In the critical incommensurate (IC) region characterized by a finite magnetization, we can easily calculate the various correlation functions of the effective spin chain and hence that of the original spin tube

$`\chi _p^{zz}`$ $`=`$ $`S_p^z(x,t)S_p^z(0,0)`$ (17)
$`\chi _p^\pm `$ $`=`$ $`S_p^+(x,t)S_p^{}(0,0),`$ (18)
where $`p`$ is the chain index and $`\pm `$ refers to the intra and interchain correlation, respectively. From (9), we see that the magnetisation $`\stackrel{~}{m}`$ in the spin tube is related to the magnetisation of the effective system by $`\stackrel{~}{m}=(1m)/3`$. The first correlation function is useful for neutron scattering experiments, whereas the correlation function (18) defines the staggered susceptibility that is useful for the calculation of NMR relaxation rates. Using (9) which relate the original spins to the pseudo-spin $`\frac{1}{2}`$ variables, we obtain

$`\chi ^{zz}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{9}}\left[T^z(x,t)T^z(0,0)+(1+T^z)^2\right]`$ (19)
$`\chi _p^+`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}T^+(x,t)T^{}(0,0)`$ (20)
which in turn leads to the following results :

$`\chi _p^{zz}`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{9}}(1m)^2+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{9}}\mathrm{cos}\pi x(12m)(x^2u^2t^2)^K+constK\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{(xut)^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(x+ut)^2}}\right),`$ (21)
$`\chi _p^\pm `$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}[()^{x/a}(x^2u^2t^2)^{\frac{1}{4K}}+const.\mathrm{cos}(2\pi mx)(x^2u^2t^2)^{(\frac{1}{4K}+K1)}.`$ (23)
$`({\displaystyle \frac{e^{2i\pi mx}}{(xut)^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{e^{2i\pi mx}}{(x+ut)^2}})],`$
where, $`u`$ is the spin mode velocity. The correlation functions so found show a power-law decay in space and time. As anticipated, we see that two incommensurate modes appear at the wave vectors $`Q=2\pi (1m),`$ for $`\chi ^{zz}`$ and $`Q=2\pi m`$ for $`\chi _p^+`$, resulting in a different behaviour in the plane perpendicular to the field and along the field. The exponents of these power-laws now vary with the magnetisation $`m`$. These can be obtained by numerically solving the Bethe ansatz equations of Ref.. As the magnetisation $`m0.5`$ or equivalently when the average number of fermions goes to $`1`$, the fermion band is completely filled and we expect to recover the physics or free fermions whose $`K=1`$.

The behaviour found for the spin-spin correlation functions in the present case, is wholly different from that found in Ref..

$`\chi _p^\pm \left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{x^2(u_at)^2}}\right)^{\frac{K_a}{2}+\frac{1}{2K_a}}\mathrm{cos}(Q_1(x,t))+\mathrm{cos}(Q_2(x,t))\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{x^2(u_at)^2}}\right)^{\frac{1}{2K_a}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{x^2(u_bt)^2}}\right)^{\frac{K_b}{6}}+`$ (24)
$`\mathrm{cos}(Q_3(x,t))\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{x^2(u_at)^2}}\right)^{\frac{K_a}{8}+\frac{1}{8K_a}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{x^2(u_bt)^2}}\right)^{\frac{3K_b}{8}+\frac{3}{8K_b}}+\mathrm{cos}(Q_4(x,t))\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{x^2(u_at)^2}}\right)^{\frac{K_a}{8}+\frac{1}{8K_a}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{x^2(u_bt)^2}}\right)^{\frac{3}{K_b}+\frac{K_b}{24}}`$ (25)
Here, $`u_a,u_b`$ are the velocities of the spin and chiral excitations and $`K_a,K_b`$ are the Luttinger parameters associated with these excitations. $`Q_1,Q_2,Q_3`$ and $`Q_4`$ are functions which fix the incommensuration. One of the primary differences between (24) and (23) is that the former shows an explicit dependence on two different velocities $`u_a`$ and $`u_b`$ related to the magnetic and chirality modes and exhibits incommensuration at many more wavevectors. These velocities were different and in addition to the sum of the power law correlations exhibited by the two components, there is an interference between the two which contributes a third term with a different exponent in the correlation function for the spins. The two components will be distinguished when an extra field which couples to the spin current in the transverse direction is applied.

To summarize, when the field is applied parallel to the plane of the triangles, no chiral interaction is induced and the system exhibits the two component Luttinger behaviour of (24). However, when the field is applied along the length of the tube i.e., perpendicular to the plane of the triangles, the chiral interaction plays a dominant role and we recover the single component behaviour indicated in (21,23). The exponents of the various power laws in the correlation functions will also be different in the two cases. Moreover, the value of the critical fields $`H_{c1}`$ and $`H_{c2}`$ are also different for the different field directions. These predictions are strong signatures of the chiral term and they could be verified experimentally. Moreover, in the past there have been a lot of discussions of how to experimentally establish the existence of chirality in systems. In spin tubes and other systems, the change in critical behaviour can be perceived as an indirect test of such chiral exchanges in realistic systems.

#### 1 Frustrated spin ladders

We have also analysed the effect of these chiral interactions on certain strongly coupled frustrated ladders considered by Mila and shown in Fig.2. In all of these cases, we find that the chiral term has no effect whatsoever on the C-IC physics seen in these systems. This is due to the fact that in each of the examples considered, the unperturbed ground state (equivalent of the spin $`\frac{1}{2}`$ states on the triangles in the spin-tube) has no interesting chiral properties i.e., they have no low lying chiral modes. As shown above, we introduce pseudo-spin operators to derive the relevant effective hamiltonians close to $`h_c`$. In all these models, it turns out that the chiral term is effectively zero when written in terms of these operators. Consequently, the physics of these strongly coupled frustrated ladders is completely unaffected by the chiral term.

## IV Weakly coupled zig-zag ladders

In the previous section, we considered the effect of the chiral interaction on the spin-tube as an example of a strongly coupled quasi-one dimensional systems. Here, the possible non-trivial effects generated by the chiral term could be deduced by merely studying the the chiral properties of the relevant “unperturbed” ground state in the absence of the external field. Such an approach fails for weakly coupled spin systems like the zig-zag chains and frustrated ladders. There, to begin with, one lacks a schematic picture of the ground state(s) which is highly correlated. Neverthless, in such cases, one can use bosonization methods  to study the effects of the chiral terms on the long wavelength physics of these systems. Here, we consider the example of the zig-zag ladder, where the chiral terms are relatively simpler than those generated in frustrated ladders. We will restrict ourselves to the limit of very strong anisotropy that corresponds to two coupled XX chains. (We assume that the anisotropies are generated by spin-orbit couplings, which do not affect the form of the chiral interaction.) The XX zig-zag ladder was studied in Ref. using a mean-field treatment of the bosonized hamiltonian. Here, we analyze the effect of the chiral term on the mean-field solution via a similar treatment.

The zig-zag ladder ( Fig.3) has spins $`𝐒`$ on chain $`1`$ and spins $`𝐓`$ on chain $`2`$. The bosonized hamiltonian for the zig zag ladder has been derived by Nersesyan et al.. The bosonic fields $`\varphi _1`$ and $`\varphi _2`$ and their duals $`\theta _1`$ and $`\theta _2`$ are introduced to describe the spins in the two chains, $`𝐒`$ and $`𝐓`$. In terms of the the symmetric (antisymmetric) combinations, $`\varphi _{s,a}=(\varphi _1\pm \varphi _2)/\sqrt{2}`$ and $`\theta _{s,a}=(\theta _1\pm \theta _2)/\sqrt{2}`$ which describe the triplet (singlet) sector, the hamiltonian describing the long wavelength physics of the anisotropic XX zig-zag ladder is given by

$$H=H_0+H_{int}+H_{mag}$$
(26)
where,

$`H_0`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\alpha =s,a}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{v}{2}}\left[(_x\theta _\alpha )^2+(_x\varphi _\alpha )^2\right]`$ (27)
$`H_{int}`$ $`=`$ $`\gamma _x\theta _s\mathrm{sin}\sqrt{2}\theta _a`$ (28)
and the Pauli coupling of the spins to an external field $`h`$ (which affects only the triplet sector) is given by

$$H_{mag}=h\frac{\sqrt{2}}{\pi }_x\varphi _s$$
(29)
The spin-wave velocity $`vJa`$ and $`\gamma `$ is the strength of the zig-zag coupling. Note that the interaction term in (27) is marginal. Due to the anisotropy, we only consider the case where the field is applied along the $`z`$-axis perpendicular to the plane of the zig-zag ladder. A magnetic field applied in the plane of the zig zag chain is very complicated, since even the simple Pauli coupling generates a gap in the triplet sector. In the absence of any field, the ground state of this model was shown  to be a spin nematic with gapless triplet excitations and gapped singlet excitations. This state was also characterized by a power law decay of the staggered transverse spin correlations at an incommensurate wave vector $`Q=\pi \delta `$, where $`\delta `$ depends on $`v`$ and $`\gamma `$. A Pauli coupling to the magnetic field in the $`z`$ direction has no effect on the staggered part of the correlation and induces only a trivial incommensuration in the uniform part of the spin correlation function. To the hamiltonian (26) we now add the chiral interaction term (LABEL:hchiral) involving the spins on every triangular plaquette. It takes the form

$`H_{chiral}`$ $`=`$ $`\mu _ch(𝐒_i𝐓_{i+1})𝐓_i\times 𝐒_{i+1}`$ (31)
for every pair of spins $`𝐒_𝐢,𝐓_𝐢`$. In terms of the continuum fields,

$`H_{chiral}`$ $`=`$ $`\mu _ch{\displaystyle }dx[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\pi ^2a^2}}\mathrm{sin}\sqrt{2}\theta _a(x)(1+2\sqrt{2}a_x\varphi _a)+`$ (33)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(2\pi )^2}}(_x\varphi _a_x\theta _s_x\varphi _s_x\theta _a)],`$
We see that the first term in (33) is a relevant operator of dimension one that can have the effect of eliminating the gap in the singlet sector. The other terms are all marginal. The first two terms act exclusively on the singlet sector, whereas the last two terms couple the singlet and triplet sectors. Moreover, these terms will compete with $`H_{int}`$ in (27). On physical grounds we speculate that the coupling of the chiral interaction to the singlet sector arises from the hidden chirality in the ground state. The presence of so many competing operators renders the problem highly complex. Here, since we are interested only in the qualitative effects of the chiral term, we restrict ourselves to a simple self-consistent mean-field analysis which leads us to the following Hamiltonian

$$H_{MF}=H_s+H_a$$
(34)
with

$$H_s=\frac{v}{2}\left[(_x\theta _s)^2+(_x\varphi _s)^2\right]+(h+\beta L_3)_x\varphi _s+(\gamma K_1\beta K_2)_x\theta _s,$$
(35)
$`H_a`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{v}{2}}\left[(_x\theta _a)^2+(_x\varphi _a)^2\right]+(\alpha _1+\alpha _2K_2+\gamma L_2)\mathrm{sin}\sqrt{2}\theta _a+`$ (37)
$`+(\alpha _2K_1\beta L_2)_x\varphi _a+\beta L_4_x\theta _a,`$
where the mean-field parameters

$`K_1`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{sin}\sqrt{2}\theta _aK_2=_x\varphi _a`$ (38)
$`L_1`$ $`=`$ $`K_2=_x\varphi _aL_2=_x\theta _s`$ (39)
$`L_3`$ $`=`$ $`_x\theta _aL_4=_x\varphi _s,`$ (40)
and $`\alpha _1=\mu _ch/2\pi ^2,`$ $`\alpha _2=\sqrt{2}\mu _ch/\pi ^2,\beta =\mu _c/2\pi ^2`$. The triplet channel ($`s`$) can be solved easily by eliminating the terms linear in $`\theta _s`$ and $`\varphi _s`$ through the field shifts: $`\theta _s\theta _s+(\gamma K_1\beta K_2)x/2,`$ and $`\varphi _s\varphi _s+(h+\beta L_3)x/2`$. Analogously in the $`a`$ channel, the gradient of $`\varphi _a`$ can be eliminated by a simple shift $`\varphi _a\varphi _a+(\alpha _2K_1\beta L_2)x/2`$. Self-consistency of the solution then leads to the following relations

$`K_2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2\alpha _2+\beta \gamma }{\beta ^24}}K_1,L_2={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(\beta K_2\gamma K_1)`$ (41)
$`L_3`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(h+\beta L_3)`$ (42)
Here we have assumed that the ground state of the system is found in the sector with nonzero spin current $`_x\theta _s`$. ¿From the very structure of the mean field hamiltonian (37), we see that though triplet excitations remain gapless, the situation is not so clear for singlet excitations. The hamiltonian in the singlet sector takes the form

$$H_a=\frac{v}{2}\left[(_x\theta _a)^2+(_x\varphi _a)^2\right]+\mu \mathrm{sin}\sqrt{2}\theta _a+\beta L_4_x\theta _a$$
(43)
where the coefficient of the sine term which generates a gap is given by

$$\mu =\alpha _1+\frac{2(\alpha _2^2+\alpha _2\beta \gamma +\gamma ^2)}{\beta ^24}K_1,$$
(44)
Note that the structure of $`H_a`$ is similar to that of systems with gapped triplet excitations in an external magnetic field ( the equivalent of the “external” magnetic field in this case being the mean field parameter $`\beta L_4`$). The bare gap in this case is $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mu ^{2/3}`$. ¿From the structure of the mean field equations, we see that since $`\mu `$ depends on the external magnetic field, the gap is a varying function of $`h`$. The field $`L_4`$ tends to reduce this gap. Moreover, it is known that these systems exhibit the C-IC transition when the strength of the field attains a critical value which equals the magnitude of the gap. For fields greater than the critical field $`h_c`$ (not estimated here), the system has gapless excitations at incommensurate values of the wave vector. We, therefore, expect within mean field two kinds of solutions: in the first one the gap induced by the sine term survives and, consequently, there is no net ”magnetisation” i.e., $`_x\theta _a=0`$. This implies that $`K_10`$ and $`L_3=0`$. Using (42), we see that $`L_4=h/2`$ in the gapped phase. The second solution describes the ”incommensurate” phase with a finite ”magnetisation” $`m_a`$ i.e., $`L_3=_x\theta _a=m_a`$. In this phase, the effective field in the singlet sector is given by $`L_4=\frac{1}{2}(h+\beta m_a)`$. One or the other solution will be energetically favoured as the field is tuned. In the gapless IC phase, the gradient in $`\theta _a`$ can be absorbed into the quadratic part by the shift $`\theta _a\theta _a+\beta L_4x/2`$; the singlet sector is now effectively a Luttinger liquid described by

$$H_a=\frac{v_a(h)}{2}\left[K_a(h)(_x\varphi _a)^2+\frac{1}{K_a(h)}(_x\theta _a)^2\right]$$
(45)
where the new velocity and the Luttinger liquid parameters $`v_a,K_a`$ both vary with the field. The results obtained earlier in the context of the normal C-IC transition can be used to obtain $`K_a(h)`$. In fact, $`K_a(h=h_c)=2`$. In conjunction with the gapless spin excitations described by $`H_s`$, this results in a two component Luttinger liquid like behaviour! The possibility of such a transition, however, depends crucially on the mean field solutions. The calculation of the regime of validity of the two solutions requires the knowledge of the exact expectation value of the mass term $`\mathrm{sin}\sqrt{2}\theta _a`$ as a function of the prefactor of the ”magnetic field” like term $`_x\theta _a`$. This expectation value is rather difficult to estimate and has only been calculated either for zero magnetic field or in the limit of fields larger than the gap opened by the sine-Gordon term i.e., in the gapless phase where $`\mathrm{\Delta }/\beta L_41`$ . Here, we assume that the chiral term has indeed driven the singlet sector across the transition into the gapless “incommensurate”phase and solve for the mean field equations. In this limit,

$$\mathrm{sin}\sqrt{2}\theta _a=c\beta L_4\mu $$
(46)
where $`c`$ is some constant and $`\mu `$ given by (44 ) is a function of the other mean field parameters. Using (46 ) and (40) we can now solve explicitly for $`K_1`$ to obtain

$`K_1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _1}{f^1(h)\frac{2}{\beta ^24}(\alpha _2^2+\alpha _2\beta \gamma +\gamma ^2)}}`$ (47)
$`\mu `$ $`=`$ $`\alpha _1+{\displaystyle \frac{2\alpha _1(\alpha _2^2+\alpha _2\beta \gamma +\gamma ^2)}{f^1(h)(\beta ^24)2(\alpha _2^2+\alpha _2\beta \gamma +\gamma ^2)}}.`$ (48)
where $`f(h)=(ch)^1`$. We find that the mean field solutions are self-consistent with the limit $`\mathrm{\Delta }/\beta L_41`$ used to obtain them. This limit translates to the condition $`h\gamma /\mu _c`$ and allows for a finite $`h_c`$.

In conclusion, we have shown that, while the Pauli interaction with the field leaves the physics of the XX ladder completely unchanged, at the mean field level the chiral term radically alters the physics of the zig-zag chain. It generates a transition to a gapless regime in the singlet sector for large enough values of the magnetic field. The gapless singlet excitations manifest themselves in specific heat measurements and more importantly, in the spin correlation functions. A new peak appears in the specific heat as a function of the magnetic field. Such a transition in the singlet space will result in a change of the exponents of power laws in the transverse spin correlation functions, as we will see below.

### A The correlation functions and relevance to experimental quantities

We conclude the analysis of the effect of the chiral interactions on the zig-zag chain with the calculation of the spin-spin correlation functions. They could be useful for the neutron scattering experiments and the NMR relaxation rates measurements. ¿From the previous mean-field solution we get the following shifts of the fields

$`\theta _s`$ $``$ $`\theta _s+{\displaystyle \frac{pK_1}{2v}}x`$
$`\theta _a`$ $``$ $`\theta _a+{\displaystyle \frac{p^{}}{2v}}x`$
$`\varphi _a`$ $``$ $`\varphi _a+{\displaystyle \frac{\delta K_1}{2v}}x`$
$`\varphi _s`$ $``$ $`\varphi _s+{\displaystyle \frac{\delta ^{}}{2v}}x`$
where

$`p`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma (\beta ^24)\beta (\alpha _2+\beta /2\gamma )}{\beta ^24}}`$
$`\delta `$ $`=`$ $`\alpha _2+{\displaystyle \frac{\beta v}{2}}`$
for all values of the field $`h`$ and

$`p^{}`$ $`=`$ $`0;\delta ^{}=h\mathrm{for}h<h_c`$
$`p^{}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(h+\beta m_a);\delta ^{}=h+\beta m_a\mathrm{for}h>h_c`$
In the C phase $`(h<h_c)`$, with gapless triplet excitations and gapped singlet excitations, $`\theta _s=0`$ and $`\theta _a`$ has a non-zero expectation value determined by the position of the minima of the Sine-Gordon potential i.e., $`\theta _a=\sqrt{\pi /8}`$sign$`(\mu )`$. This allows us to express the dual fields in the chains as

$$\theta _{1,2}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\theta _s^0(x)+\frac{pK_1}{2\sqrt{2}v}x\pm \frac{\sqrt{\pi }}{4},$$
(49)
Using (49), the staggered part of the transverse spin correlation functions are now given by

$$\chi _\pm (x,t)S_{1,2}^+S_1^{}(1)^{x/a}e^{iBx}(x^2v^2t^2)^{\frac{1}{8}}$$
(50)
where $`B=\left(\frac{pK_1}{2\sqrt{2}v}\right)`$. The transverse correlations still fall off as a power-law with exponent $`1/4`$, but they are incommensurate with a field dependent characteristic vector:

$$Q(h)=\pi \left(\frac{pK_1}{2\sqrt{2}v}\right).$$
(51)
Comparing (50,51) with the results of Ref., which corresponds to setting $`\mu _c=0`$ in the above equations, we find that the exponents are the same in both cases and the only effect of the chiral term is to induce a magnetic field dependent incommensuration. Moreover, the Pauli term does not induce any additional incommensuration in the staggered transverse spin correlation functions. Therefore, a varying $`Q`$ should serve as a good experimental probe of the chiral interactions.

In the gapless incommensurate phase of the singlet $`(h>h_c)`$, the singlet excitations are described by a Luttinger liquid (45). In this case, both the gapless triplet and singlet excitations (which are probably chiral) contribute to $`\chi _\pm `$. Here, $`\theta _a`$ also has a zero expectation value and the expression (49) is invalid in this phase. Instead,

$$\theta _{1,2}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(\theta _s(x)\pm \theta _a(x))+\frac{pK_1\pm p^{}}{2\sqrt{2}v}x.$$
(52)
which leads to the following asymptotic behaviour of the transverse spin-spin correlation:

$$\chi _\pm (x,t)S_{1,2}^+S_1^{}(1)^{x/a}e^{iB_\pm x}(x^2v^2t^2)^{\frac{1}{8}}(x^2v_a^2(h)t^2)^{\frac{K_a(h)}{8}}$$
(53)
where $`B_\pm =\left(\frac{pK_1\pm p^{}}{2\sqrt{2}v}\right)`$. Note that $`v`$ is the velocity of the gapless triplet excitations and $`v_a(h)`$ is the velocity of the gapless singlet excitations. This behaviour is indeed reminiscent of a two component Luttinger liquid. The equal-time transverse spin correlations on the two chains fall off as a power-law with exponent $`K(h)=(1+K_a(h))/4`$, but they are incommensurate with characteristic vectors:

$`Q_\pm =\pi \left({\displaystyle \frac{pK_1\pm p^{}}{2\sqrt{2}v}}\right).`$

At the critical field $`h=h_c`$, since $`K_a(h=h_c)=2`$, the spin correlation function

$$\chi _\pm (x,t)e^{iQ_\pm x}(x^2v^2t^2)^{\frac{1}{8}}(x^2v_a^2(h_c)t^2)^{\frac{1}{4}}$$
(54)
From (54) and (50), we see that the transition will manifest itself in the equal time spin correlation function as an abrupt change in the exponent i.e., it jumps from $`\frac{1}{4}`$ to $`\frac{3}{4}`$ and then varies slowly with increasing field. Such a dramatic change in the exponent could be easily seen in NMR and susceptibility measurements.

For strong zig-zag interactions $`\gamma `$, we anticipate that the chiral term is irrelevant and that the singlet sector remains gapped. It remains to be seen whether the transition in the singlet space survives when fluctuations are taken into account. Also, these are complicated sine-Gordon theories and one should worry about solitons and kinks. An interesting question is whether such a physics survives in the isotropic case or when there is a finite $`J_z`$ coupling.

## V conclusions

Chiral interactions induced by the magnetic field appear in a variety of non-bipartite quasi one-dimensional spin systems. We have shown that these terms could dramatically alter the physics of systems such as strongly coupled spin tubes and weakly coupled zig-zag ladders. The effect of these chiral interactions depend strongly on the direction of the applied field and could be measured experimentally. In the case of spin-tubes in a magnetic field along the tube, we showed that these chiral terms change the critical behaviour in the incommensurate phase, from that of a two component Luttinger liquid (in the absence of chiral interactions) to the usual single component Luttinger liquid. However, for fields perpendicular to the axis of the tube, no chiral terms are generated and one recovers the usual two component Luttinger liquid. On the other hand, these terms have no effect on certain strongly coupled zig-zag and frustrated ladders. For the weakly coupled zig-zag ladder, we showed that the chiral term does something entirely novel i.e., an applied magnetic field can drive a C-IC like transition in the non-magnetic singlet sector! This results in gapless singlet and triplet excitations described by a two component Luttinger liquid. It is very remakable that the chiral term destroys the two component Luttinger liquid in spin tubes, but induces a novel two component Luttinger liquid behaviour in the weak zig zag ladder. These effects should be visible in measurements of various experimental quantities ranging from simple specific heat, NMR rates and dynamical structure factor measurements.

## VI Acknowledgments

We thank F. Essler for useful discussions, A. Jezez and E. Orignac for discussions and a careful reading of the manuscript.