O ct 1 99 8 Important configurations for NN processes in a Goldstone boson exchange model

We study the short-range nucleon-nucleon interaction in a nonrelativistic chiral constituent quark model by diagonalizing a Hamiltonian containing a linear confinement and a Goldstone boson exchange interaction between quarks. A finite six-quark basis obtained from single particle cluster model states was previously used. Here we show that the configurations which appear naturally through the use of molecular orbitals, instead of cluster model states, are much more efficient in lowering the six-quark energy.