Screening of transverse virtual photons in the stellar core

The electromagnetic two-body interaction energy between pairs of charged particles is modified in the thermal environment of the solar core. Irreducible diagrams involving the exchange of two transverse photons are shown to mediate an O(e4) contribution to the static energy which is universally attractive between all pairs of particles in the plasma. This contribution turns out to be in gross violation of standard solar physics unless the dispersion relation ωt(k) for the transverse modes of the photon is altered to include the well-known transverse mass, mt2≃e2ne/me. This calculation can then be viewed as confirming the use of quasiparticle propagators for quantum processes in the solar core environment.