Elastic neutron scattering and rhombohedral antiferromagnets

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Abstract
Infinite isoenergetic helix spin configurations minimize the energy of the classical Heisenberg rhombohedral antiferromagnet with nearest neighbor interactions. We comment about elastic neutron scattering data on ACrO2 (A=Cu, Ag, Pd) compounds which seem to support the degenerate helix scenario modified by quantum fluctuations in agreement with the theoretical expectation. We investigate by a microscopic approach the existence of static short range order in β-oxygen as suggested on the basis of recent elastic neutron scattering experiment.