Simulations with dynamical HISQ quarks

Abstract: We report on the status of a program of generating and using configurations with four flavors of dynamical quarks, using the HISQ action. We study the lattice spacing dependence of physical quantities in these simulations, using runs at several lattice spacings, but with the light quark mass held fixed at two tenths of the strange quark mass. We find that the lattice artifacts in the HISQ simulations are much smaller than those in the asqtad simulations at the same lattice spacings and quark masses. We also discuss methods for setting the scale, or assigning a lattice spacing to ensembles run at unphysical parameters.