The Nf = 0 heavy quark potential and perturbation theory

Abstract The potential of a static quark-antiquark pair is studied in the range 0.05 fm ≤ r ≤ 0.8 fm, employing a sequence of lattices up to 64 4 . The continuum quantities are evaluated by extrapolation of the data at finite lattice spacing. The results are compared with the perturbation theory predictions obtained from the solution of the renormalization group equation for the coupling. The renormalization scheme must be chosen carefully. No evidence for large non-perturbative effects at short distances is seen.