3-DIMENSIONAL SU(3) GAUGE-THEORY AND THE SPATIAL STRING TENSION OF THE (3-DIMENSIONAL FINITE-TEMPERATURE SU(3) GAUGE-THEORY(1))

We establish a close relation between the spatial string tension of th e (3 + 1)-dimensional SU(3) gauge theory at finite temperature (sigma( s)) and the string tension of the 3-dimensional SU(3) gauge theory (si gma(3)) which is similar to what has been found previously for SU(2). We obtain root sigma(3) = (0.554 +/- 0.004) g(3)(2) and root sigma(s) = (0.586 +/- 0.045) g(2) (T)T, respectively. For temperatures larger t han twice the critical temperature, results are consistent with a temp erature dependent coupling running according to the two-loop beta-func tion with Lambda(T) = 0.118(36) T-c.