Non-perturbative improvement of nHYP smeared Wilson fermions

Abstract

Using Schroedinger functional techniques, we determine the coefficient of the clover term necessary for non-perturbative O(a) improvement of hypercubic smeared Wilson fermions on a quenched plaquette action background. Unlike for unsmeared Wilson fermions, the resulting clover coefficients are close to the tree-level value even at coarse lattice spacings, indicating the absence of large cutoff effects. A number of exploratory tests are also performed with the improved action.