The infrared behaviour of the running coupling constant in Yang-Mills theories

A study has been made of the behaviour of g/sup 2/(q/sup 2/) in the infrared limit of QCD. An outline of the QED case was given, and a similar method was used to obtain the glue propagator in pure Yang- Mills theory. A naive interpretation of the results suggested that the confining effective potential was proportional to r for large r, and the power obtained was independent of coupling constant and colour gauge group. Results also indicated that the Dyson equation-Ward identity approach is worth pursuing beyond the small momentum expansion. (5 refs).