Two-loop computation of the Schrödinger functional in pure SU(3) lattice gauge theory Original Research Article

We compute the Schrödinger functional (SF) for the case of pure SU(3) gauge theory at two-loop order in lattice perturbation theory. This allows us to extract the three-loop β-function in the SF scheme. These results are required to compute the running coupling, the Λ-parameter and quark masses by finite size techniques with negligible systematic errors. In addition, we can now implement two-loop O(a) improvement in simulations and extend and study series in alternative (“tadpole-improved”) bare couplings.