SPATIAL STRING TENSION IN THE DECONFINED PHASE OF (3-DIMENSIONAL SU(2) GAUGE-THEORY(1))

We present results of a detailed investigation of the temperature depe ndence of the spatial string tension in SU(2) gauge theory. We show, f or the first time, that the spatial string tension is scaling on the l attice and thus is nonvanishing in the continuum limit. It is temperat ure independent below T(c) and rises rapidly above. For temperatures l arger than 2T(c) we find a scaling behavior consistent with sigma(s)(T ) = (0.136 +/- 0.011)g4(T)T2, where g(T) is the two-loop running coupl ing constant with a scale parameter determined as LAMBDA(T) = (0.076 /- 0.013)T(c).