Quark model and the triton

The Virginia NN potential, which is based on an effective quark interchange mechanism at medium and long distances and is supplemented by a six-quark core potential with a P-matrix type parametrization, is used for calculating the triton binding energy. We find that (i) the triton binding energy is sensitive to the six-quark core radius b, (ii) the 34-channel triton calculation yields 8.04 MeV, which is 0.4--0.5 MeV larger than the realistic potential model results.