Dynamical Fermions with Fat Links

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new method for simulating dynamical fermions with fat links, utilizing auxiliary gauge fields, which improves flavor symmetry restoration and significantly reduces computational costs.

Contribution

The authors develop a novel approach using auxiliary gauge fields for dynamical fermion simulations with fat links, compatible with any fermionic action and updating method.

Findings

Flavor symmetry at a~0.2 fm is restored to a few percent.

Restoration at standard action occurs at a~0.07 fm.

Computational cost is reduced by at least a factor of 10.

Abstract

We present and test a new method for simulating dynamical fermions with fat links. Our construction is based on the introduction of auxiliary but dynamical gauge fields and works with any fermionic action and can be combined with any fermionic updating. In our simulation we use an over-relaxation step which makes it effective. For four flavors of staggered fermions first results indicate that flavor symmetry at a lattice spacing a~0.2 fm is restored to a few percent. With the standard action this amount of flavor symmetry restoration is achieved at a~0.07 fm. We estimate that the overall computational cost is reduced by at least a factor 10.