Multi-quark energies in QCD

Abstract

Four-quark potentials for $SU(2)$ are evaluated in the static limit with the quenched approximation -- using a lattice of $16^3\times 32$ and $\beta=2.4$. The four quarks are restricted to the corners of rectangles with sides upto seven lattice spacings long. The results are analysed in terms of a strategy based on interquark two-body potentials -- as advocated earlier by the authors. This shows that a standard two-body approach overestimates the four-quark binding energy by upto a factor of about three for the largest rectangles.