We report some progress on the quark confinement problem in 2 + 1 dim. pure Yang-Mills theory, using Euclidean instanton methods. The instantons are regularized Wu-Yang ‘monopoles’, whose long range Coulomb field is screened by collective effects. Such configurations are stable to small perturbations unlike the case of singular, undressed monopoles. Using exact non-perturbative results for the 3-dim. Coulomb gas, where Debye screening holds for arbitrarily low temperatures, we show in a self-consistent way that a mass gap is dynamically generated in the gauge theory. The mass gap also determines the size of the monopoles. We also identify the disorder operator of the model in terms of the Sine-Gordon field of the Coulomb gas and hence obtain a dual representation whose symmetry is the centre ofSU(2).

We review the theory of the microscopic modeling of the 5-dim. black hole of type HB string theory in terms of the D₁–D₅ brane system. A detailed discussion of the low energy effective Lagrangian of the brane system is presented and the black hole micro-states are identified. These considerations are valid in the strong coupling regime of supergravity due to the non-renormalization of the low energy dynamics in this model. Using Maldacena duality and standard statistical mechanics methods one can account for black hole thermodynamics and calculate the absorption cross section and the Hawking radiation rates. Hence, at least in the case of this model black hole, since we can account for black hole properties within a unitary theory, there is no information paradox.