Constituent quark mass

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The constituent quark mass is also called 'effective mass'.

In the QCD the effective masses serve the constituent quarks for description of the hadrons in the low energy limit, where a disturbance-theoretical view is not possible.

Definition: The Constituent quark masses are those mass values of the six quarks with those the sums of the respective masses of the hadrons come out as well as possible.

For the up and down quarks the constituent mass is obviously completely determined by the correlations and interactions with the sea-quarks and gluons.

For the heavy quarks (C,b,t) there is no difference between current quark mass and constituent quark mass.