Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Physics

A b s t r a c t Starting from the QCD Lagrangian we derive the effective action for massive quark and antiquark at large distances, corresponding to the minimal area low of the Wilson loop. The path integral method is used to quantize the system and the spectrum is obtained with asymptotically linear Regge trajec-tories. Two dynamical regimes distinguished by the string energy–momentum distribution are found: at large orbital excitations (l ≫ 1) the system behaves as a string and yields the Regge slope of 1 2πσ , while at small l one obtains a potential-like regime for relativistic or nonrelativistic system. The problem of relative time is clarified. It is shown that in the valence quark approximation one can reduce the initial four-dimensional dynamics to the three-dimensional one. The limiting case of a pure string (without quark kinetic terms) is studied and the spectrum of the straight-line string is obtained.