  The pinch technique (PT) is applied to obtain the gauge-independent resummed
gluon self-energy in a hot Yang-Mills gas. Calculation is performed at one-
loop level in linear gauges which preserve rotational invariance and the res
ummed propagators and vertices are used. The effective gluon self-energy, w
hich is obtained as the sum of the resummed gluon self-energy and the resumm ed
pinch contributions, is not only gauge-independent but also satisfies the
transversality relation. Using this gauge-independent effective gluon self-
energy, we calculate the damping rate for transverse gluons in the leading o
rder and show that the result coincides with the one obtained by Braaten and
Pisarski.
