Gauge-fixing parameter dependence of two-point gauge variant correlation functions

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The gauge-fixing parameter ξ dependence of two-point gauge variant correlation functions is studied for QED and QCD. We show that, in three Euclidean dimensions, or for four-dimensional thermal gauge theories, the usual procedure of getting a general covariant gauge-fixing term by averaging over a class of covariant gauge-fixing conditions leads to a nontrivial gauge-fixing parameter dependence in gauge variant two-point correlation functions (e.g. fermion propagators). This nontrivial gauge-fixing parameter dependence modifies the large distance behavior of the two-point correlation functions by introducing additional exponentially decaying factors. These factors are the origin of the gauge dependence encountered in some perturbative evaluations of the damping rates and the static chromoelectric screening length in a general covariant gauge. To avoid this modification of the long distance behavior introduced by performing the average over a class of covariant gauge-fixing conditions, one can either choose a vanishing gauge-fixing parameter or apply an unphysical infrared cutoff.