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We compare the predictions of the effective string description of confinement with a set of Montecarlo data for the 3d gauge Ising model at finite temperature. Thanks to a new algorithm which makes use of the dual symmetry of the model we can reach very high precisions even for large quark-antiquark distances. We are thus able to explore the large R regime of the effective string. We find that for large enough distances and low enough temperature the data are well described by a pure bosonic string. As the temperature increases higher order corrections become important and cannot be neglected even at large distances. These higher order corrections seem to be well described by the Nambu-Goto action truncated at the first perturbative order.

We consider general planar deformations of a circular distribution of NS5-branes. The near-horizon region of the latter admits, after a T-duality transformation, an exact conformal-field-theory description in terms of the coset model SU(2)/U(1) X SL(2,R)/U(1). We derive the exactly marginal operators corresponding to an infinitesimal planar deformation using the conjectured holography between the coset model and the little string theory that resides on the worldvolume of the NS5-branes. Subsequently, we perform a complementary analysis of the same deformations using the associated N=1 supersymmetric sigma model and verify the holographic correspondence. We explicitly demonstrate a precise match between the two approaches which rests upon a delicate interplay between exact conformal-field-theory operators and their semiclassical realizations in terms of target-space variables.