Parity doublets from a relativistic quark model

The N- and the Lambda-excitation spectrum exhibit parity doublets, i.e. states of the same spin but with opposite parity being almost degenerate in mass. It is shown that in a relativistic quark model with instantaneous interaction kernels, where confinement is implemented by a linearly rising potential and the major mass splittings are generated from an interaction based on instanton effects, this degeneracy occurs quite naturally: Once the parameters of the instanton induced interaction are fixed to reproduce the ground state octet-decuplet splittings, some states are selectively lowered to a position which is degenerate with states of opposite parity. Some observable consequences are briefly discussed.