Quark model description of hadrons

Abstract

In this contribution I will try to give an overview of what has been achieved in constituent quark models of mesons and baryons by a comparison of some selected results from various ansaetze with experimental data. In particular I will address the role of relativistic covariance, the nature of the effective quark forces, the status of results on electromagnetic and strong-decay observables beyond the mere mass spectra, as well as some unresolved issues in hadron spectroscopy.

Comments: 10 pages, 5 figures. Plenary talk at Hadron 03: 10th International Conference on Hadron Spectroscopy, Aschaffenburg, Germany, 31 Aug - 6 Sep 2003