STATIC QUARK-ANTIQUARK POTENTIAL - SCALING BEHAVIOR AND FINITE-SIZE EFFECTS IN SU(3) LATTICE GAUGE-THEORY

We present results on the static qqBAR potential from high-statistics simulations on 16(4), 24(3) x 32, and 32(4) lattices, using the standard Wilson action at beta=6.0, 6.2, and 6.4 on the Connection Machine CM2. To decrease noise and increase accuracy, we applied a suitable local smoothing technique on the spatial parts of Wilson loop operators. As a result, we find a violation of asymptotic scaling of the string tension, as signaled by square-root sigma/LAMBDA(L) = 96.7(1.6)(2.6), 86.4(1.0)(1.9), 82.3(0.8)(1.7), for the three beta values, with statistical and systematic errors. We observe a linear confining potential up to distances of 2 fm. A volume of (1.5 fm)3 appears to be sufficient to avoid finite-size effects within our statistical accuracy (almost-equal-to 1%).