Relationship between proper time and dimensional regularization of QCD

The gluon propagator is renormalized to one loop in two different ways - dimensional regularization and by introducing a proper time parametrization. By comparing the two results, the ratio of the proper time mass parameter to the minimal subtraction mass is calculated. This is a renormalization-point independent and therefore physically interesting number. Using this ratio, the scale mass appearing in the one-loop constant abelian field effective action is calculated in terms of the standard QCD scale mass ΛMS. (orig.)