Testing perturbation theory on the nf=0 static quark potential

Abstract

The perturbative expansion of static force and potential is reanalyzed concerning its practical applicability. A well behaved perturbative prediction is given by the integration of the renormalization group equation for the coupling $\alpha_{qq}(\mu=1/r)=(C_f)^{-1} r^2 F(r)$. Since the Lambda-parameter of the $\nf=0$ theory is known from previous work, the perturbative prediction contains no free parameter. It is confronted with recent non-perturbative results. For $\alpha < 0.3$ where the truncation error of the perturbative expression is naively estimated to be moderate, it is really quite accurate and large ``non-perturbative terms'' are excluded.