Flux tube delocalization at the deconfinement point

Understand

We study the behaviour of the flux tube thickness in the vicinity of the deconfinement transition.

• We show, using effective string methods, that in this regime the square width increases linearly and not logarithmically with the interquark distance.
• The amplitude of this linear growth is an increasing function of the temperature and diverges as the deconfinement transition is approached from below.
• These predictions are in good agreement with a set of simulations performed in the 3d gauge Ising model.