BOUND SKYRMIONS - PROPERTIES AND PHYSICAL CONSEQUENCES OF THEIR EXISTENCE

The characteristic properties of bound Skyrmion states-classical confi gurations of chiral fields with baryon number B greater-than-or-equal- to 2-are discussed. The rather natural property of an increase of thei r dimensions and moments of inertia with increasing baryon number lead s to a decrease of the zero-mode quantum corrections to the energy of the system and, as a result, to additional stabilization of quantized baryonic systems. The whole soliton approach becomes more self-consist ent with increasing B because of the decreasing importance of the quan tum corrections. The spectrum of strange dibaryons with strangeness S down to -6 is considered. All these dibaryons are unstable with respec t to the strong interactions if use is made of the procedure of subtra ction which is necessary to obtain the NN scattering state with the co rrect energy. SO(3) solitons with B=2 and 4 are also discussed.