Vacuum-polarization-corrected long-distance static quark-antiquark potential

Abstract

Vacuum polarization at long distances for confined heavy-quark-antiquark ($Q\overline{Q}$) pairs is considered. It is argued that the static confining potential cannot grow faster than a linear potential at large distances. The vacuum-polarization-corrected potential is a flavor-independent potential which allows interpolation between charmonium, $\Upsilon$, and other $Q\overline{Q}$ systems.