QCD1+1 in the limit of a large number of colors and flavors Original Research Article

QCD in 1+1 dimensions is examined in the limit of a large number of colors and flavors. The Hamiltonian matrix is given in a Fock space spanned by ʹt Hooft meson states and, for the case of zero fermion mass, a submatrix is diagonalized numerically to give the low-lying spectrum as a function of NF/NC. Pair creation effects generate bound states which are complicated mixtures of components of different meson number. There are a number of nontrivial zero modes; in the massive part of the spectrum some states tend to a well-defined NF ⪢ NC limit while others become unstable and disappear. The masses of most states remain remarkably constant over a large range of NF/NC.