Solitons in nonlocal chiral quark models

Properties of hedgehog solitons in a chiral quark model with nonlocal regulators are described. We discuss the formation of the hedgehog soliton, the quantization of the baryon number, the energetic stability, the gauging and construction of Noether currents with help of path-ordered P-exponents, and the evaluation of observables. The issue of nonlocality is thoroughly discussed, with a focus on contributions to observables related to the Noether currents. It is shown that with typical model parameters the solitons are not far from the weak nonlocality limit. The methods developed are applicable to solitons in models with separable nonlocal four-fermion interactions. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.