Three-body confinement force in a realistic constituent quark model

We show that in realistic constituent quark models based on a two-body confinement interaction color states appear in the middle of the experimentally known spectrum. To avoid this situation we implement a three-body confinement interaction, introduced on an algebraic basis, into a semi relativistic version of the Goldstone boson exchange constituent quark model and by solving the Faddeev equations we show that this interaction can increase the gap between singlet and color states, such as the latter can be ignored and the known baryons can be described as simple q(3) systems. We analyze the effect of a Delta- and a Y-shape three-body interaction. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.