Scaling and eigenmode tests of the improved fat clover action - art. no. 034501

We test a recently proposed improved lattice-fermion action, the fat link c lover 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 lat tice spacing a = 0.09 and 0.16 fm. We show that the action apparently has f ewer problems with pathological lattice artifacts than the conventional non perturbatively improved clover action and its spectrum scales just as well.