Gauge-independent Thermal β Function In Yang-Mills Theory

It is proposed to use the pinch technique (PT) to obtain the gauge-independent thermal $\beta$ function in a hot Yang-Mills gas. Calculations of the thermal $\beta$ function are performed at one-loop level in four different gauges, (i) the background field method with an arbitrary gauge, (ii) the Feynman gauge, (iii) the Coulomb gauge, and (iv) the temporal axial gauge, and they yield the same result in all four cases.