Short Strings and New Physics Perspectives in QCD

Within the (dual) Abelian Higgs model, confining strings do not disappear at small distances but rather become short strings. In compact 3D electrodynamics, as we argue here, the confining strings are also manifested at small distances in unusual power corrections, disobeying the standard rules of the Operator Product expansion. In the most interesting case of QCD, there is yet no derivation of short strings and we turn to phenomenology to find evidence pro or contra their existence. The short strings in QCD lead to non-standard power corrections. A tentative conclusion of the analysis of existing data, both in numerical simulations and in real experiments, is that the novel power corrections are present, at least at the mass scale of 1-2 GeV.