Diagonalization of the strongly coupled lattice QCD Hamiltonian

We construct a solution to the equation of motion of Hamiltonian lattice QCD in the strong coupling limit using Wilson fermions which exactly diagonalizes the Hamiltonian to second order in the field operators. This solution obeys the free lattice Dirac equation with a dynamical mass which is identified with the gap. The equation determining this gap is derived and it is found that the dynamical quark mass is a constant to lowest order in N-c but becomes momentum dependent once O(1/N-c) corrections are taken into account. We interpret our solution within the framework of the N-quantum approach to quantum field theory and discuss how our formalism may be systematically extended to study bound states at finite temperature and chemical potential. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.