ar X iv : h ep - l at / 9 60 70 59 v 1 2 5 Ju l 1 99 6 The ρ meson decay constant using a tadpole - improved action

By improving a lattice action, one hopes that calculations at a fixed lattice spacing will be closer to their continuum values than with the original action, and similarly that calculations of a fixed accuracy can be performed on coarser lattices than those required, for example, by the Wilson action. For the present work, we consider an action which has classical errors beginning only at O(a3), and which is also tadpoleimproved[1]. This action has been used to compute the spectrum of light hadron masses[2,3], and it was found that hadron mass ratios are considerably improved compared to Wilson action results at comparable lattice spacings. In this work we address the question of whether matrix elements are similarly improved by considering the vector current renormalization factor and vector meson decay constant.