SU(3) lattice gauge autocorrelations with anisotropic action

We report results of autocorrelation measurements in pure $SU(3)$ lattice gauge theory. The computations are performed on the {\sc convex spp1200} parallel platform within the {\sc canopy} programming environment. The focus of our analysis is on typical autocorrelation times and optimization of the mixing ratio between overrelaxation and pseudo-heatbath sweeps for generating gauge field configurations. We study second order tadpole-improved approximations of the Wilson action in the gluon sector, which offers the advantage of working on smaller lattices ($8^3~\times~16$ and $6^3~\times$~12~--~30). We also make use of anisotropic lattices, with temporal lattice spacing smaller than the spatial spacing, which prove useful for calculating noisy correlation functions with large spatial lattice discretization (of the order of 0.4 fm).