  We consider deconfined matter in SU(N) gauge theory as an ideal gas of
transversely polarized quasi-particle modes having a temperature-dependent mass
m(T). Just above the transition temperature, the mass is assumed to be
determined by the critical behavior of the energy density and the screening
length in the medium. At high temperature, it becomes proportional to T as the
only remaining scale. The resulting (trace anomaly based) interaction measure
Delta=(e - 3P)/T^4 and energy density are found to agree well with finite
temperature SU(3) lattice calculations.
