Light baryons and their electromagnetic interactions in the covariant constituent quark model

TL;DR

This paper extends a covariant quark model from mesons to baryons, successfully describing static properties and form factors of nucleons and hyperons while maintaining gauge invariance.

Contribution

It introduces a covariant constituent quark model for baryons, building on previous meson models, and demonstrates its effectiveness in describing baryon static properties and form factors.

Findings

Accurately describes proton, neutron, and Lambda hyperon static properties.

Maintains gauge invariance in electromagnetic transition calculations.

Provides insights into baryon electromagnetic form factors at low momentum.

Abstract

We extend the confined covariant constituent quark model that was previously developed by us for mesons to the baryon sector. In our numerical calculation we use the same values for the constituent quark masses and the infrared cutoff as have been previously used in the meson sector. In a first application we describe the static properties of the proton and neutron, and the $\Lambda$-hyperon (magnetic moments and charge radii) and the behavior of the nucleon form factors at low momentum transfers. We discuss in some detail the conservation of gauge invariance of the electromagnetic transition matrix elements in the presence of a nonlocal coupling of the baryons to the three constituent quark fields.