  We study the short-range nucleon-nucleon interaction in a nonrelativistic
chiral constituent quark model by diagonalizing a Hamiltonian containing a
linear confinement and a Goldstone boson exchange interaction between quarks. A
finite six-quark basis obtained from single particle cluster model states was
previously used. Here we show that the configurations which appear naturally
through the use of molecular orbitals, instead of cluster model states, are
more efficient in lowering the six-quark energy.
