Current quarks and constituent quarks: Symmetry breaking and interaction

Abstract

A study is made of the question of how different the correct transformation $V$ from the current-quark to the constituent-quark basis is expected to be from the free mass-degenerate quark model discussed by Melosh. The effect of SU(3) mass breaking and of mutual interaction of the quarks is discussed in the context of a simple model. The algebraic properties of $V$ are more complicated than that of $V_{\mathrm{free}}$ the transformation constructed by Melosh; nevertheless, it still is tractable enough so an attack may be made on the problem of mass splitting in SU(6) multiplets.