High temperature 3D QCD: dimensional reduction at work

We investigate the three-dimensional SU(3) gauge theory at finite temperature in the framework of dimensional reduction. The large scale propel ties of this theory are expected to be conceptually more complicated than in four dimensions. The dimensionally reduced action is computed in closed analytical form. The resulting effective two-dimensional theory is studied numerically both in the electric and magnetic sector. We find that dimensional reduction works excellently down to temperatures of 1.5 times the deconfinement phase transition temperature and even on rather short length scales. We obtain strong evidence that for QCD(3), even at high temperature the colour averaged potential is represented by the exchange of a single state, at variance with the usual Debye screening picture involving a pair of electric gluons. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.