NJL model with infrared confinement

Abstract

We consider an extended Nambu--Jona-Lasinio (NJL) model for the light meson sector of QCD where unphysical quark production thresholds are excluded by an infrared cut-off on the momentum integration within quark loop diagrams. This chiral quark model conserves the low energy theorems. The infrared cut-off is fixed selfconsistently by the dynamically generated quark mass (quark condensate). The masses and decay widths of the σ- and ρ-mesons are described in the model.