Nuclear Physics A456 (1986) 621-628 North-Holland, Amsterdam zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA PROPERTIES OF SIX-QUARK CLUSTERS IN THE TOPOLOGICAL CHIRAL SOLITON MODEL* E. WUST’, G.E. BROWN, A.D. JACKSON and L. VEPSTAS Department of Physics, State University of New York, Stony Brook, NY 11794, USA Received 3 February 1986 Abstract: The energy and bag radius of a six-quark configuration are obtained from a topological chiral soliton model. The calculation shows that three and six quark systems in this model behave much as those in the MIT bag model. Given that QCD provides a correct theory of strong interactions at high energies, it is important to understand how it manages to reproduce familiar low-energy results and where its predictions will depart from those of traditional nuclear theory. In this regard we find three models of the nucleon ‘) of interest: the MIT bag (which incorporates QCD explicitly), the skyrmion (which describes baryons in an effective lagrangian theory which may model the low-energy limit of QCD), and the chiral bag model (which interpolates between the two). All three models appear to give reasonable descriptions of single nucleon properties, and their extension to the nucleon-nucleon interaction seems natural. This problem is much harder. At large distances, meson exchange is the most economical way to describe the NN interac- tion, and the Skyrme effective lagrangian has the potential to model it correctly. Unfortunately, full dynamical calculations are not feasible. Specifically, the question of quantizing soft modes must be addressed before any major numerical calculation could be begun. Some progress can be made: The mesonic content of the large distance skyrmion-skyrmion interaction has been identified in classical ‘) and semi- classical 3, calculations with the product ansatz. However, this ansatz breaks down at intermediate separations. Further, the “mesons” with this anatz are static, not propagating. It has also been difficult to find a convincing explanation of the origin of the phenomenologically important intermediate range central attraction in the NN interaction using such models. Only a symmetric fourth-order term seems to yield the desired attraction, but it is banished from the theory at the classical level since its presence makes the skyrmion unstable. Such a term with the correct sign does appear, however, when a one-loop calculation is performed “). l Supported in part by the US Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-76ER13001 with the State University of New York at Stony Brook. ’ Supported in part by a fellowship from the Scientific Committee of the NATO via the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). 03759474/86/%03.50 @ Elsevier Science Publishers B.V (North-Holland Physics Publishing Division)