The static quark-antiquark potential in QCD to three loops

Abstract

The static potential between an infinitely heavy quark and antiquark is derived in the framework of perturbative QCD to three loops by performing a full calculation of the two-loop diagrams and using the renormalization group. The contribution of massless fermions is included.

Figures (3)

• Figure 1: One-loop ladder diagrams. The double lines indicate static sources.
• Figure 2: Two-loop ladder diagrams.
• Figure 3: Corrections to one-loop ladder diagrams required for the potential calculation.