Pseudoscalar and scalar meson masses at finite temperature - art. no. 114024.

The composite operator formalism is applied to QCD at finite temperature to calculate the masses of scalar and pseudoscalar mesons. In particular the ratio of the sigma mass to the pion mass is an interesting measure of the d egree of chiral symmetry breaking;It different temperatures. We calculate t he temperature T* at which M-sigma(T)less than or equal to 2M(pi)(T), above which the sigma partial width into two pions vanishes. We find T* = 0.95T( c). (where T-c is the critical temperature for the chiral phase transition) , within the full effective potential given by the formalism. We find that an expansion a la Landau of the effective potential around the critical poi nt in the limit of small quark mass provides for a very good determination of T*. [S0556-2821(99)05411-9].