Behind the success of the quark model

TL;DR

This study uses lattice QCD to analyze three-quark potentials, confirming the Y-ansatz description, universality of string tension, and finding a large gluonic excitation energy that supports the quark model's effectiveness.

Contribution

It provides detailed lattice QCD results on 3Q potentials, confirming the Y-ansatz and the large gluonic excitation energy, explaining the success of the quark model.

Findings

Ground-state 3Q potential well described by Y-ansatz

Universality of string tension between 3Q and Q-Qbar systems

Gluonic excitation energy around 1 GeV

Abstract

The ground-state three-quark (3Q) potential $V_{\rm 3Q}^{\rm g.s.}$ and the excited-state 3Q potential $V_{\rm 3Q}^{\rm e.s.}$ are studied using SU(3) lattice QCD at the quenched level. For more than 300 patterns of the 3Q systems, the ground-state potential $V_{\rm 3Q}^{\rm g.s.}$ is investigated in detail in lattice QCD with $12^3\times 24$ at $\beta=5.7$ and with $16^3\times 32$ at $\beta=5.8, 6.0$. As a result, the ground-state potential $V_{\rm 3Q}^{\rm g.s.}$ is found to be well described with Y-ansatz within the 1%-level deviation. From the comparison with the Q-$\rm\bar Q$ potential, we find the universality of the string tension as $\sigma_{\rm 3Q}\simeq\sigma_{\rm Q\bar Q}$ and the one-gluon-exchange result as $A_{\rm 3Q}\simeq\frac12 A_{\rm Q\bar Q}$. The excited-state potential $V_{\rm 3Q}^{\rm e.s.}$ is also studied in lattice QCD with $16^3\times 32$ at $\beta=5.8$ for 24 patterns of the 3Q systems.The energy gap between $V_{\rm 3Q}^{\rm g.s.}$ and $V_{\rm 3Q}^{\rm e.s.}$, which physically means the gluonic excitation energy, is found to be about 1GeV in the typical hadronic scale, which is relatively large compared with the excitation energy of the quark origin. This large gluonic excitation energy justifies the great success of the simple quark model.