Lattice QCD on Small Computers

Abstract

We demonstrate that lattice QCD calculations can be made $10^3$--$10^6$ times faster by using very coarse lattices. To obtain accurate results, we replace the standard lattice actions by perturbatively-improved actions with tadpole-improved correction terms that remove the leading errors due to the lattice. To illustrate the power of this approach, we calculate the static-quark potential, and the charmonium spectrum and wavefunctions using a desktop computer. We obtain accurate results that are independent of the lattice spacing and agree well with experiment.