Thermodynamics with dynamical clover fermions

We investigate the finite temperature behavior of nonperturbatively improve d clover fermions on lattices with temporal extent N-t=4 and 6. Unfortunate ly in the gauge coupling range, where the clover coefficient has been deter mined nonperturbatively, the finite temperature crossover/transition occurs at heavy pseudoscalar masses and large pseudoscalar to vector meson mass r atios. However, on an N-t = 6 lattice the thermal crossover for the improve d fermions is much smoother than for unimproved Wilson fermions and no stra nge metastable behavior is observed. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rig hts reserved.