Stability of Plasma Oscillations in Hot Gluonic Matter

It is argued that the high-temperature gluon-plasma damping constants previously calculated by use of the background-field method and the Vilkovisky-DeWitt effective action do not have a physical interpretation since they are not derived from correlation functions relevant to linear-response theory. A correct application of the gauge- and parametrization-independent formalism does not affect the plasmon frequency, but yields the following modified results for the longitudinal and transverse damping constants: ${\gamma }_L={\gamma }_T=-\left(\frac{9}{32\pi }\right)g^2\mathrm{NT}$.