Scaling and Eigenmode Tests of the Improved Fat Clover Action

Abstract

We test a recently proposed improved lattice-fermion action, the fat link clover action, examining indicators of pathological small-quark-mass lattice artifacts ("exceptional configurations") on quenched lattices of spacing 0.12 fm and studying scaling properties of the light hadron spectrum for lattice spacing a=0.09 and 0.16 fm. We show that the action apparently has fewer problems with pathological lattice artifacts than the conventional nonperturbatively improved clover action and its spectrum scales just as well.

Comments: 15 pp RevTeX, 5 Postscript figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. Rearranged section order and added an analysis of fluctuations of the pion correlator