Light Quark Simulations With FLIC Fermions

TL;DR

This paper evaluates a new fat-link clover fermion action in quenched lattice QCD, demonstrating improved scaling behavior and fewer exceptional configurations for light quark mass simulations.

Contribution

Introduction of the FLIC fermion action, which uses APE-smeared links for irrelevant operators, showing advantages over traditional improvement methods.

Findings

FLIC fermions exhibit superior scaling behavior.

Reduced occurrence of exceptional configurations.

Effective for simulating light quark masses with m_pi/m_rho ~ 0.35.

Abstract

Hadron masses are calculated in quenched lattice QCD in order to probe the scaling behavior of a novel fat-link clover fermion action in which only the irrelevant operators of the fermion action are constructed using APE-smeared links. Light quark masses corresponding to an m_pi / m_rho ratio of 0.35 are considered to assess the exceptional configuration problem of clover-fermion actions. This Fat-Link Irrelevant Clover (FLIC) fermion action provides scaling which is superior to mean-field improvement and offers advantages over nonperturbative improvement, including reduced exceptional configurations.