The lowest momentum at which the total scattering cross-section data are available for Σ⁺p and Σ⁻p scattering is 145 MeV/c and 142.5 MeV/c respectively. Thus extracting low energy parameters amounts to extrapolating the data to still lower energies. Using the analytic structure of foward scattering amplitude to advantage a parameterization of theσ_T is presented which is hoped to be more reliable and stable for deriving results through extrapolation. The scattering lengths and effective ranges for the Σ⁺p and Σ⁻p are also estimated.

The claim of Mohapatra and Maharana thattb(s) is a better scaling variable thant(lns)² is put to test in the case of Λ-p scattering, after parametrizingb(s) asC₁ +C₂(lns)α. It was observed that in this case the data also prefer anα value which is close to those obtained by Mohapatra and Maharana for other scattering processes.

We study the vacuum structure in QCD in a nonperturbative manner using a variational approach with gluon condensates. We show that in Coulomb gauge as the coupling becomes moderately strong, the perturbative vacuum of QCD becomes unstable leading to gluon condensates and a gauge dependent effective mass for the gluons related to the gauge independent value of 〈vac‖G_μν^aG^aμν‖vac〉 of Shifmanet al.