  We study the $T=0$ frustrated phase of the $1D$ quantum spin-$\frac 12$
system with nearest-neighbour and next-nearest-neighbour isotropic exchange
known as the Majumdar-Ghosh Hamiltonian. We first apply the coupled-cluster
method of quantum many-body theory based on a spiral model state to obtain the
ground state energy and the pitch angle. These results are compared with
accurate numerical results using the density matrix renormalisation group
method, which also gives the correlation functions. We also investigate the
periodicity of the phase using the Marshall sign criterion. We discuss
particularly the behaviour close to the phase transitions at each end of the
frustrated phase.
