THE QUANTUM SKYRMION IN REPRESENTATIONS OF GENERAL DIMENSION

The representations of general dimension are constructed for the SU(2) Skyrme model, treated quantum mechanically ab initio. This quantum Sk yrme model has a negative mass term correction that is not present in the classical Hamiltonian. The magnitude of the quantum mechanical mas s correction increases with the dimension of the representation of the SU(2) group. In the case of a 5-dimensional representation it is poss ible to obtain satisfactory predictions for the nucleon mass with the empirical value for the pion decay constant.