Quark solitons as constituents of hadrons

We exhibit static solutions of multi-flavour QCD in two dimensions that have the quantum numbers of baryons and mesons, constructed out of quark and anti-quark solitons. In isolation the latter solitons have infinite energy, corresponding to the presence of a string carrying the non-singlet colour flux off to spatial infinity. When $N_c$ solitons of this type are combined, a static, finite-energy, colour singlet solution is formed, corresponding to a baryon. Similarly, static meson solutions are formed out of a soliton and an anti-soliton of different flavours. The stability of the mesons against annihilation is ensured by flavour conservation. The static solutions exist only when the fundamental fields of the bosonized Lagrangian belong to $U(N_c{\times}N_f)$ rather than to $SU(N_c) \times U(N_f)$. Discussion of flavour symmetry breaking requires a careful treatment of the normal ordering ambiguity. Our results can be viewed as a derivation of the constituent quark model in QCD$_2$, allowing a detailed study of constituent mass generation and of the heavy quark symmetry.