Three-quark potential in SU(3) lattice QCD

The static three-quark (3Q) potential is studied in SU(3) lattice QCD with 12(3) x 24 and beta = 5.7 at the quenched level. From the 3Q Wilson loop, 3Q ground-state potential V-3Q is extracted using the smearing technique for ground-state enhancement. With accuracy better than a few percent, V-3Q is well described by a sum of a constant, the two-body Coulomb term, and the three-body linear confinement term sigma L-3Q(min), with L-min the minimal value of total length of color flux tubes linking the three quarks. Comparing with the Q-(Q) over bar potential, we find a universal feature of the string tension, sigma 3Q similar or equal to <<sigma>(Q(Q)over bar>), and the OGE result for Coulomb coefficients, A(3Q) similar or equal to 1/2A(Q(Q) over bar).