on the form of the ground state as possible, and by incorporating correctly the gluonic zero modes. In this paper we develop the machinery to achieve this goal. For the actual solution of the theory for arbitrary baryon numbers we refer to Ref. [@nonzeroBpaper] and for all other discussions on the way nonzero chemical potential affects the system to Ref. [@nonzeroMUpaper].

Former studies of the ‘t Hooft model used a plethora of mathematical methods – for example see [@plethora] for some papers relevant to this work. Common to all these is the need to control the severe IR divergences of this two-dimensional model. A particular clear approach, that we will follow in our study, is the one advocated in the seminal Refs. [@LTYL; @LNT]. There, one works in the Hamiltonian formalism defined in a spatial box of side $L$, and uses the axial gauge to remove all redundant degrees of freedom. This approach is also most suitable for our purpose of investigating the $L$-dependence of this Hamiltonian’s ground state.

The outline of the paper is as follows. In Section \[LQCDH\] we present the details of the Hamiltonian approach to lattice QCD. A reader who is familiar with this approach can 