This concise research monograph introduces and reviews the concept of chiral soliton models for baryons. In these models, baryons emerge as (topological) defects of the chiral field. The many applications shed light on a number of bayron properties, ranging from static properties via nuclear resonances to even heavy ion collisions. This volume also features a number of appendices to help nonspecialist readers to follow in more detail some of the calculations in the main text.

This concise research monograph introduces and reviews the concept of chiral soliton models for baryons. In these models, baryons emerge as (topological) defects of the chiral field. The many applications shed light on a number of bayron properties, ranging from static properties via nucleon resonances and deep inelastic scattering to even heavy ion collisions. As far as possible, the theoretical investigations are confronted with experiment. Conceived to bridge the gap between advanced graduate textbooks and the research literature, this volume also features a number of appendices to help nonspecialist readers to follow in more detail some of the calculations in the main text.

This book describes baryon models constructed from quarks, mesons and chiral symmetry. The role of chiral symmetry and of quark model structure with SU(6) spin-flavor symmetry are discussed in detail, starting from a pedagogic introduction. Emphasis is placed on symmetry aspects of the theories. As an application, the chiral bag model is studied for nucleon structure, where important methods of theoretical physics, mostly related to the semiclassical approach for a system of strong interactions, are demonstrated. The text is more practical than formal; tools and ideas are explained in detail while solving actual problems. By checking each step of the computations, readers can learn not only the calculational techniques but also the essential ideas behind them.

The revival of the Skyrme model for baryons has led to a large variety of investigations ranging from the foundations of effective meson theories and chiral soliton models, over numerous extensions of Skyrme's original concept, to many impressive results in applications to the meson-baryon system. Each author has made essential contributions to the field of his expertise, and the lectures collected in this proceedings review and asses the present status of these achievements and serve as guiding lines for future developments.