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