QCD Thermodynamics with an Improved Lattice Action

We have investigated QCD with two flavors of degenerate fermions using a Symanzik-improved lattice action for both the gauge and fermion actions. Our study focuses on the deconfinement transition on an $N_t=4$ lattice. Having located the thermal transition, we performed zero temperature simulations nearby in order to compute hadronic masses and the static quark potential. We find that the present action reduces lattice artifacts present in thermodynamics with the standard Wilson (gauge and fermion) actions. However, it does not bring studies with Wilson-type quarks to the same level as those using the Kogut--Susskind formulation.