Gauge-variant propagators and the running coupling from lattice QCD

On the occasion of the 70th birthday of Prof. Adriano Di Giacomo we report on recent numerical computations of the Landau gauge gluon and ghost propagators as well as of a non-symmetric MOM-scheme ghost-gluon vertex in quenched and full lattice QCD. Special emphasis is paid to the Gribov copy problem and to the unquenching effect. The corresponding running coupling \alpha_s(q^2) is found and shown to decrease for q^2 \le 0.3 GeV^2 in the infrared limit. No indication for a non-trivial infrared fixed point is seen in agreement with findings from truncated systems of Dyson-Schwinger equations treated on a four-dimensional torus.