Collective Resonances in the Soliton Model Approach to Meson--Baryon Scattering

The proper description of hadronic decays of baryon resonances has been a long standing problem in soliton models for baryons. In this talk I present a solution to this problem in the three flavor Skyrme model that is consistent with large-Nc consistency conditions. As an application I discuss hadronic pentaquark decays and show that predictions based on axial current matrix elements are erroneous.Comment: Contribution to QNP06 (Madrid, June 2006), 3 pages epja styl

Spin Structure Functions in Chiral Quark Soliton Models

In this talk I review studies of hadron structure functions in bosonized chiral quark models. Such models require regularization and I show that the two--fold Pauli--Villars regularization scheme not only fully regularizes the effective action but also leads the scaling laws for structure functions. This scheme is consistent with other computations of the pion structure function in that model. For the nucleon structure functions the present approach serves to determine the regularization prescription for structure functions whose leading moments are not given by matrix elements of local operators. Some numerical results are presented for the spin structure functions and the role of strange quarks is addressed.Comment: Based on plenary talk presented at the QCD-Workshop in Charlottesville, April 2002. 12 pages Latex, uses ws-procs9x6.cls (included

Flavor Symmetry Breaking and Strangeness in the Nucleon

We suggest that breaking of SU(3) flavor symmetry mainly resides in the baryon wave--functions while the charge operators have no (or only small) explicit symmetry breaking components. We utilize the collective coordinate approach to chiral soliton models to support this picture. In particular we compute the $g_A/g_V$ ratios for hyperon beta--decay and the strangeness contribution to the nucleon axial current matrix elements and analyze their variation with increasing flavor symmetry breaking.Comment: 3 pages, EJPA-style. Based on talks presented at QNP 2002, Juelich, June 2002 and ''workshop on the structure of the nucleon'', Trento, Sept. 2002. To appear in the proceedings of QNP200

Quantum Energies of Solitons

For renormalizable models a method is presented to unambiguously compute the energy that is carried by localized field configurations (solitons). A variational approach for the total energy is utilized to search for soliton configurations. As an example a 1+1 dimensional model is considered. The quantum energy of configurations that are translationally invariant for a subset of coordinates is discussed.Comment: 6 pages LaTeX with ws-p8-50x6-00.cls (included). To appear in the proceedings of the 6th workshop on non-perturbative QCD, Paris, June 200

Pentaquarks in a Breathing Mode Approach to Chiral Solitons

In this talk I report on a computation of the spectra of exotic pentaquarks and radial excitations of the low--lying ${1/2}^+$ and ${3/2}^+$ baryons in a chiral soliton model. In addition I present model results for the transition magnetic moments between the N(1710) and the nucleon.Comment: Talk presented at the Pentaquark workshop at Spring--8, July 2004. Eight page

Baryons as Three Flavor Solitons

The description of baryons as soliton solutions of effective meson theories for three flavor (up, down, strange) degrees of freedom is reviewed and the phenomenological implications are illuminated. In the collective approach the soliton configuration is equipped with baryon quantum numbers by canonical quantization of the coordinates describing the flavor orientation. The baryon spectrum resulting from exact diagonalization of the collective Hamiltonian is discussed. The prediction of static properties such as the baryon magnetic moments and the Cabibbo matrix elements for semi--leptonic hyperon decays are explored with regard to the influence of flavor symmetry breaking. In particular, the role of strange degrees of freedom in the nucleon is investigated for both the vector and axial--vector current matrix elements. The latter are discussed extensively within in the context of the {\it proton spin puzzle}. The influence of flavor symmetry breaking on the shape of the soliton is examined and observed to cause significant deviations from flavor covariant predictions on the baryon magnetic moments. Short range effects are incorporated by a chiral invariant inclusion of vector meson fields. These extensions are necessary to properly describe the singlet axial--vector current and the neutron proton mass difference. The effects of the vector meson excitations on baryon properties are also considered. The bound state description of hyperons and its generalization to baryons containing a heavy quark are illustrated. In the case of the Skyrme model a comparison is performed between the collective quantization scheme and bound state approach. Finally, the Nambu--Jona--Lasinio model is employed to demonstrate that hyperons can be described as solitons in a microscopic theory of the quarkComment: 110 pages, minor corrections, submitted as uuencoded file, to appear in Int. J. Mod. Phys.