Screening masses in the SU(3) pure gauge theory and universality

We determine frorn 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 sarne 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 frorn perturbation theory and mean-field Polyakov loop models. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.