Static limit of quantum chromodynamics

Several features of the static quark-antiquark potential in quantum chromodynamics are studied. It is shown, first of all, that the potential between fixed color sources exists as the infinite-mass limit of the interaction between a heavy quark and antiquark. The phenomenological consequences of this result are summarized. The potential is then examined as an expansion in the strong-coupling constant αₛ using the Wilson loop integral. Infrared properties are elucidated and the power-series expansion in αₛ is shown to break down. The quantum color correlations of the quark sources with the gluon field induce singularities which can only be removed by selective resummation. The resulting expression for the potential is nonanalytic in αₛ at αₛ=0.