  We study the free energy of static three quark systems in singlet, octet,
decuplet and average color channels in the quenched approximation and in
2-flavor QCD at finite temperature. We show that in the high temperature phase
singlet and decuplet free energies of three quark systems are well described by
the sum of the free energies of three diquark systems plus self energy
contributions of the three quarks. In the confining low temperature phase we
find evidence for a Y-shaped flux tube in SU(3) pure gauge theory, which is
less evident in 2-flavor QCD due to the onset of string breaking. We also
compare the short distance behavior of octet and decuplet free energies to the
free energies of single static quarks in the corresponding color
representations.
