Width of long colour flux tubes in lattice gauge systems Original Research Article

In the confining phase of any gauge system the mean squared width of the colour flux tube joining a pair of quarks should grow logarithmically as a function of their distance, according to the effective string description of its infrared properties. New data on 3D 7L2 gauge theory, combined with high precision data on the interface physics of the 3D Ising model, nicely fit this behaviour over a range of more than two orders of magnitude.