Covariant quantization of the skyrmion Original Research Article

We obtain the internal degrees of freedom of the skyrmion (spin and isospin) within a manifestly Lorentz covariant quantization framework based on defining Green functions for skyrmions and, then, the S-matrix via LSZ reduction. Our method follows Fröhlich and Marchettiʹs definition of Euclidean soliton Green functions, supplemented with a careful treatment of the boundary conditions around the singularities. The covariant two-point function obtained propagates a tower of spin equal to isospin particles. Our treatment contains the usual method of collective coordinates, as a non-relativistic limit and, because of the new topology introduced, it leads, in a natural way, to the inequivalent (boson/fermion) quantizations of the SU(2) skyrmion.