In these lecture notes we discuss an analytic calculational scheme for SU(N) gauge theories in a finite volume. We will mainly concentrate on pure SU(2) gauge theory. The method relies on using an effective Hamiltonian for the zero momentum modes. The notorious problem of Gribov horizons is evaded by encoding the topological nontrivial nature of configuration space into boundary conditions for the zero momentum modes. This system then allows us to compute the low-lying energy spectrum in volumes up to about five times the size of the scalar glueball. These continuum results agree in general well with the lattice Monte Carlo results. We discuss in some detail the resolution of a discrepancy with Monte Carlo results for the T+2 glueball.
PACS numbers: 11.15.Tk
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