Two Quark Potentials

Abstract

In this Chapter QCD interactions between a quark and an anti-quark are discussed. In the heavy quark limit these potentials can be related to quarkonia and $1/m$ corrections can be systematically determined. Excitations of the ground state potential provide an entry point into the phenomenology of quark-gluon hybrids. The short-distance behaviour of non-perturbative potentials can serve as a test of resummation and convergence of perturbative expansions. Torelons and potentials between non-fundamental colour charges offer a window into the origin of the confinement mechanism and relate to effective string descriptions of low energy aspects of QCD.