RPA description of the electric polarizability of the nucleon

Excited states of the nucleon are described as RPA configurations on a mean-field ground state taken from the MIT bag model. A residual interaction of a structure as in the Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model is used. The particlehole states are coupled to good total angular momentum and isospin. Valence excitations of particle-hole type and quark-antiquark (q $bar q$ ) states from the Dirac-sea are included. The dependence of the baryon spectrum and multipole response functions on the coupling constantG is studied. At critical values ofG the 3q-ground state becomes degenerate with strongly collectiveq99-2 modes. The model is used to calculate the averaged electric polarizability of the neutron and the protonα. Without residual interactionα=7·10^?4 fm ³ is found. With residual interaction the value increases toα=(?11)·10^?4 fm ³. The measured value ofα is reproduced within experimental error bars.