Roper resonance in a quark-diquark model

Abstract

We discuss a new description for the Roper resonance, the first nucleon excited state of JP = 1/2+, in a model of strong diquark correlations. Treating the scalar-isoscalar and axial-vector--isovector diquarks as independent degrees of freedom, two states having nucleon quantum numbers are constructed. Due to the scalar and axial-vector nature of the diquarks, the two nucleon states have different internal structure of spin and isospin. This yields the mass splitting of order several hundreds MeV, and hence the two states are identified with the nucleon and Roper. We demonstrate this scenario in a simple two channel problem.