We analyze the distribution of the chromoelectric field generated by a static quark-antiquark pair in the SU(3) vacuum and revisit previous results for SU (2). We find that the transverse profile of the flux tube resembles the dual version of the Abrikosov vortex field distribution. We give an estimate of the London penetration length of the chromoelectric field in the confined vacuum. We also speculate on the value of the ratio between the penetration lengths for SU(2) and SU(3) gauge theories.

We determine from Polyakov loop correlators the screening masses in the deconfined phase of the (3+1)d SU(3) pure gauge theory at finite temperature near the transition, for two different channels of angular momentum and parity. Their ratio is compared with that of the massive excitations with the same quantum numbers in the 3d 3-state Potts model in the broken phase near the transition point at zero magnetic field. Moreover we study the inverse decay length of the correlation between the real parts and between the imaginary parts of the Polyakov loop and compare the results with expectations from perturbation theory and mean-field Polyakov loop models.

We consider the mass spectrum of the 3d 3-state Potts model in the broken phase (a) near the second order Ising critical point in the temperature -magnetic field plane and (b) near the weakly first order transition point at zero magnetic field. In the case (a), we compare the mass spectrum with the prediction from universality of mass ratios in the 3d Ising class; in the case (b), we determine a mass ratio to be compared with the corresponding one in the spectrum of screening masses of the (3+1)d SU(3) pure gauge theory at finite temperature in the deconfined phase near the transition. The agreement in the comparison in the case (a) would represent a non-trivial test of validity of the conjecture of spectrum universality. A positive answer to the comparison in the case (b) would suggest the possibility to extend this conjecture to weakly first order phase transitions.