Gauge-independent extraction of the next-to-leading-order Debye mass from the gluon propagator

It is shown that by defining the Debye mass through the relevant pole of the static gluon propagator rather than the zero-momentum limit of the time-time component of the gluon self-energy, a gauge-independent result for the next-to-leading order correction can be derived upon resummation of hard-thermal-loop contributions. The result turns out to be logarithmically sensitive to the magnetic screening mass. [Talk given at the 3rd Workshop on Thermal Field Theories and their Applications, August 15-27, 1993, Banff, Alberta, Canada]