MASSES OF ORBITALLY EXCITED BARYONS IN LARGE N-C QCD

We present the first phenomenological study of the masses of orbitally excited baryons in large N-c QCD. Restricting here to the nonstrange sector of the l = 1 baryons, the 1/N-c expansion is used to order and select a basis of effective operators that spans the nine observables (seven masses and two mixing angles). Fits are performed using subsets of the complete set of nine operators, including corrections up to O( 1/N-c) where leading order is N-c(1). This study shows that the 1/N-c expansion provides an excellent framework for analyzing the mass spect rum, and uncovers a new hierarchy of operator contributions. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.