Ground-state baryons in nonperturbative quark dynamics

Abstract

We review the results obtained in an Effective Hamiltonian (EH) approach for the three-quark systems. The EH is derived starting from the Feynman--Schwinger representation for the gauge-invariant Green function of the three quarks propagating in the nonperturbative QCD vacuum and assuming the minimal area law for the asymptotic of the Wilson loop. It furnishes the QCD consistent framework within which to study baryons. The EH has the form of the nonrelativistic three-quark Hamiltonian with the perturbative Coulomb-like and nonperturbative string interactions and the specific mass term. After outlining the approach, methods of calculations of the baryon eigenenergies and some simple applications are explained in details. With only two parameters: the string tension $\sigma=0.15 GeV^2$ and the strong coupling constant $\alpha_s=0.39$ a unified quantitative description of the ground state light and heavy baryons is achieved. The prediction of masses of the doubly heavy baryons not discovered yet are also given. In particular, a mass of $3660 MeV$ for the lightest $\Xi_{cc}$ baryon is found by employing the hyperspherical formalism to the three quark confining potential with the string junction.