UNIVERSALITY AND THE APPROACH TO THE CONTINUUM-LIMIT IN LATTICE GAUGE-THEORY

The universality of the continuum limit and the applicability of renor malized perturbation theory are tested in the SU(2) lattice gauge theo ry by computing two different non-perturbatively defined running coupl ings over a large range of energies. The lattice data (which were gene rated on the powerful APE computers at Rome II and DESY) are extrapola ted to the continuum limit by simulating sequences of lattices with de creasing spacings, Our results confirm the expected universality at al l energies to a precision of a few percent, We find, however, that per turbation theory must be used with care when matching different renorm alized couplings at high energies.