Flow equations for gluodynamics in the Coulomb gauge - art. no. 074001

A systematic procedure to consistently formulate a field theoretical, QCD b ound state problem with a fixed number of constituents is outlined. The app roach entails applying the Hamiltonian flow equations, which are a set of c ontinuous unitary transformations, to a QCD motivated Hamiltonian with a co nfining interaction. The method is developed in detail for gluodynamics in the Coulomb gauge to obtain an effective block-diagonal Hamiltonian appropr iate to a reduced Fock space with a fixed number of dynamical gluons. Stand ard many body techniques are used to numerically diagonalize this Hamiltoni an in a constituent two gluon Pock space. The calculated gluon condensates and glueball masses are in good agreement with QCD sum rule and lattice res ults.