Calibration of smearing and cooling algorithms in SU(3)-color gauge theory

The action and topological charge are used to determine the relative rates of standard cooling and smearing algorithms in pure SU(3)-color gauge theory. We consider representative gauge field configurations on 16(3) x 32 lattices at beta =5.70 and 24(3)x36 lattices at beta =6.00. We find that the relative rate of variation in the action and topological charge under various algorithms may be succinctly described in terms of simple formulas. The results are in accordance with recent suggestions from fat-link perturbation theory.