Light meson spectra and instanton-induced forces

The spinless Salpeter equation supplemented by an instanton-induced force is used to describe the spectra of light mesons, including the pseudoscalar ones. The coupling constants of the instanton-induced potential, as well as the quark constituent masses, are not treated as simple free parameters but are calculated from the underlying instanton theory. Quite good results are obtained provided the quarks are considered as effective degrees of freedom with a finite size. A further test of the model is performed by calculating the electromagnetic mass differences between S-wave mesons.