Model-independent determination of the gluon condensate in four-dimensional SU(3) gauge theory

Understand

We determine the non-perturbative gluon condensate of four-dimensional SU(3) gauge theory in a model independent way.

• This is achieved by carefully subtracting high order perturbation theory results from non-perturbative lattice QCD determinations of the average plaquette.
• No indications of dimension two condensates are found.
• The value of the gluon condensate turns out to be of a similar size as the intrinsic ambiguity inherent to its definition.