Effective gluon mass and infrared fixed point in QCD

We report on a special type of solutions for the gluon propagator of pure QCD, obtained from the corresponding non-linear Schwinger-Dyson equation formulated in the Feynman gauge of the background field method. These solutions reach a finite value in the deep infrared and may be fitted using a massive propagator, with the crucial characteristic that the effective ``mass'' employed depends on the momentum transfer. Specifically, the gluon mass falls off as the inverse square of the momentum, as expected from the operator-product expansion. In addition, one may define a dimensionless quantity, which constitutes the generalization in a non-Abelian context of the universal QED effective charge. This strong effective charge displays asymptotic freedom in the ultraviolet whereas in the low-energy regime it freezes at a finite value, giving rise to an infrared fixed point for QCD.