Meson screening masses in the interacting QCD plasma

The meson screening mass in the pseudoscalar channel is calculated from the momentum dependent meson spectral function, using HTL fermionic propagators. A careful subtraction procedure is required to get an UV finite result. It is shown that in the whole range of temperatures explored here the HTL screening mass stays above the non-interacting result, slowly approaching the value mscr = 2 root pi T-2(2) + m(infinity)(2) where m(infinity)(2) is the HTL asymptotic thermal quark mass. Our analysis leads to a better understanding of the excitations of QGP at sufficiently large temperatures and may be of relevance for interpreting lattice results. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.