Spectrum of the QCD flux tube in 3d SU(2) lattice gauge theory

Abstract Evidence from the lattice suggests that formation of a flux tube between a q q ¯ pair in the QCD vacuum leads to quark confinement. For large separations between the quarks, it is conjectured that the flux tube has a behavior similar to an oscillating bosonic string, supported by lattice data for the groundstate q q ¯ potential. We measure the excited states of the flux tube in 3d SU ( 2 ) gauge theory with three different couplings inside the scaling region. We compare our results to predictions of effective string theories.