Some universal features of the effective string picture of pure gauge theories

The effective string describing the large distance behaviour of the quark sources of gauge field theories in the confining phase in D=3 or D=4 space-time dimensions can be formulated, in the infrared limit, as a suitable 2D conformal field theory on surfaces with quark loops as boundaries. Recent results on self-avoiding random surfaces allow to fix almost uniquely such a conformal theory. As a consequence, some universal relationships among the string tension , the thickness of the colour flux tube, the deconfinement temperature and a lower bound of the glueball mass spectrum are found. The general agreement with the data extracted from recent lattice simulations with different gauge groups is rather impressive.(Talk held by F.Gliozzi at Lattice'92 , Amsterdam)Comment: 9 pages(LaTeX),DFTT61/9

Universal behaviour of interfaces in 2d and dimensional reduction of Nambu-Goto strings

We propose a simple effective model for the description of interfaces in 2d statistical models, based on the first-order treatment of an action corresponding to the length of the interface. The universal prediction of this model for the interface free energy agrees with the result of an exact calculation in the case of the 2d Ising model. This model appears as a dimensional reduction of the Nambu-Goto stringy description of interfaces in 3d, i.e., of the capillary wave model.Comment: 14 pages, 1 figur

String effects in SU(2) lattice gauge theory

We discuss the effective string picture for the confining regime of lattice gauge theories at zero and finite temperature. We present results of extensive Monte Carlo simulations - performed with the Luscher and Weisz algorithm - for SU(2) Yang-Mills theory in 2+1 dimensions. We also address the issue of "string universality" by comparing our results with those obtained in other lattice gauge theories.Comment: 3 pages, 2 figures, Lattice2003(topology

On the linear increase of the flux tube thickness near the deconfinement transition

We study the flux tube thickness of a generic Lattice Gauge Theory near the deconfining phase transition. It is well known that the effective string model predicts a logarithmic increase of the flux tube thickness as a function of the interquark distance for any confining LGT at zero temperature. It is perhaps less known that this same model predicts a linear increase in the vicinity of the deconfinement transition. We present a precise derivation of this result and compare it with a set of high precision simulations in the case of the 3d gauge Ising model.Comment: 20 pages, 4 figures, minor changes. Accepted for publication in JHE

Fluid Interfaces in the 3D Ising Model as a Dilute Gas of Handles

We study the topology of fluid interfaces in the 3D Ising model in the rough phase. It turns out that such interfaces are accurately described as dilute gases of microscopic handles, and the stiffness of the interface increases with the genus. The number of configurations of genus $g$ follows a Poisson-like distribution. The probability per unit area for creating a handle is well fitted in a wide range of the inverse temperature $\beta$ near the roughening point by an exponentially decreasing function of $\beta$. The procedure of summing over all topologies results in an effective interface whose squared width scales logarithmically with the lattice size.Comment: 15 pages, Latex and 10 ps figs (uuencoded file) DFTT 27/9

A new universality class describing the insulating regime of disordered wires with strong spin-orbit scattering

We discuss the distribution of transmission eigenvalues in the strongly localized regime in the presence of both a magnetic field and spin--orbit scattering. We show that, under suitable conditions, this distribution can be described by a new universality class labelled not only by the index $\beta$ but also by a new index $\eta$. This result is obtained by mapping the problem into that of a suitable Calogero-Sutherland model.Comment: 4 pages, Revte

Corrections to Scaling and Critical Amplitudes in SU(2) Lattice Gauge Theory

We calculate the critical amplitudes of the Polyakov loop and its susceptibility at the deconfinement transition of SU(2) gauge theory. To this end we carefully study the corrections to the scaling functions of the observables coming from irrelevant exponents. As a guiding line for determining the critical amplitudes we use envelope equations derived from the finite size scaling formulae for the observables. The equations are then evaluated with new high precision data obtained on N^3 x 4 lattices for N=12,18,26 and 36. We find different correction-to-scaling behaviours above and below the transition. Our result for the universal ratio of the susceptibility amplitudes is C_+/C_-=4.72(11) and agrees perfectly with a recent measurement for the 3d Ising model.Comment: LATTICE98(hightemp

Static quark potential and effective string corrections in the (2+1)-d SU(2) Yang-Mills theory

We report on a very accurate measurement of the static quark potential in SU(2) Yang-Mills theory in (2+1) dimensions in order to study the corrections to the linear behaviour. We perform numerical simulations at zero and finite temperature comparing our results with the corrections given by the effective string picture in these two regimes. We also check for universal features discussing our results together with those recently published for the (2+1)-d Z(2) and SU(3) pure gauge theories.Comment: 29 pages, 6 figure