We explore the possibility that the spin-1 triangular lattice magnet NiGa2 S4 may have a ferro-nematic ground state with no frozen magnetic moment but a uniform quadrupole moment. Such a state may be stabilized by biquadratic spin interactions. We describe the physical properties of this state and suggest experiments to help verify this proposal. We also contrast this state with a `non-collinear' nematic state proposed earlier by Tsunetsugu and Arikawa for NiGa2S4 .
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0605277,
title = {Possible ferro-spin nematic order in NiGa2S4},
author = {Subhro Bhattacharjee and Vijay B. Shenoy and T. Senthil},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0605277},
year = {2009}
}