Plane-wave, coordinate-space, and moment techniques in the operator-product expansion: equivalence, improved methods, and the heavy quark expansion

We compare plane-wave, coordinate-space and moment methods for evaluating operator-product expansion (OPE) coefficients of the light-quark and gluon condensates. Equivalence of these methods for quark condensate contributions is proven to all orders in the quark mass parameter m. The three methods are also shown to yield equivalent gluon condensate contributions to two-current correlation functions, regardless of the gauge chosen for external gluon fields in the coordinate space approach. An improved method for evaluating quark-condensate OPE coefficients is presented for several (two-current) correlation functions. Gauge-dependent Green functions are also discussed. It is shown that contradictory expressions for the gluon-condensate contribution to the quark propagator occurring from the plane-wave and coordinate-space approaches yield identical relations between the heavy-quark and gluon condensates, as anticipated from the gauge invariance of the heavy-quark expansion. (orig.)