CHIRAL UNIVERSALITY CLASS IN A FRUSTRATED 3-LEG SPIN LADDER

We study a model of three S = 1/2 antiferromagnetic Heisenberg spin ch ains weakly coupled by on-rung and plaquette-diagonal interchain inter actions. It is shown that the model exhibits a critical phase with cen tral charge C = 2 and belongs to the class of ''chirally stabilized'' liquids recently introduced by Andrei, Douglas, and Jerez. By allowing anisotropic interactions in spin space, we find an exact solution at a Toulouse point which captures all universal properties of the model, including the SU(2) symmetric case. At this critical point the massle ss degrees of freedom are described in terms of an effective S = 1/2 H eisenberg spin chain and two critical Ising models. We discuss the spe ctral properties of the model, compute spin-spin correlation functions , and estimate the NMR relaxation rate. [S0163-1829(98)51738-9].