We develop a consistent relativistic generalization of collective coordinate quantization of field theory solitons. Our principle of introducing collective coordinates is that the equations of motion of the collective coordinates ensure those of the original field theory. We illustrate this principle with the quantization of spinning degrees of freedom of Skyrmion representing baryons. We calculate the leading relativistic corrections to the static properties of nucleons, and find that the corrections are non-negligible ones of 10% to 20%.

• Received 5 March 2010

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.82.025017