---
author:
- 'R. Schulze[^1]'
- 'M. Bluhm'
- 'B. Kämpfer'
title: 'Plasmons, plasminos and Landau damping in a quasiparticle model of the quark-gluon plasma'
---

Introduction {#intro}
============

Intense experimental and theoretical investigations [@KMR03] suggest the existence of a new, deconfined phase of strongly interacting matter, where quarks and gluons form a fluid or gas, the quark-gluon plasma (QGP). If confirmed, the QGP would have existed during the Big Bang prior to hadronization and might be found inside of massive neutron stars. Indeed, recent results from the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) experiments point to the formation of a quark-gluon medium of low viscosity [@BRA05; @PHO05; @STA05; @PHE05].

However, on the theoretical side, much work remains to be done. Perturbative solutions of QCD [@AZ95; @ZK95; @Kaj03; @Vuo03a; @Vuo03b; @IRV04] are limited to the region of asymptotic freedom and fail for the strong coupling regime (e.g. in the vicinity of the pseudocritical temperature [@BI02] of deconfinement $T_{c}$; at somewhat higher temperatures, say above $2T_c$ resummation improves the convergence of perturbation theory noticeably [@KPP97; @ABS99; @BIR01]). Numerical evaluations of the full theory, on the other hand, are still restricted to small chemical potential as being useful for the Big Bang or 