Properties of skyrmions of large baryon number

Using a mixture of analytic and numerical techniques, the properties of skyrmions pertaining to large baryon number N are calculated. A closed-form approximation is found for the soliton profile and approximate expressions are generated for the skyrmion RMS radius and energy, from which energy densities for large N may be estimated. The results indicate that for N > 13 these densities reach twice the value for a single nucleon and for very large N they rise as Nsup(1/2). Thus the skyrmion supports energy densities of sufficient magnitude to provide the conditions for the creation of a quark-gluon plasma at nucleon numbers low enough to achieve this condition with conventional nuclear projectiles and targets. (author)