Lattice QCD with light Wilson quarks

Wilson's formulation of lattice QCD is attractive for many reasons, but perhaps mainly because of its simplicity and conceptual clarity. Numerical simulations of the Wilson theory (and of its improved versions) tend to be extremely demanding, however, to the extent that they rapidly become impractical at small quark masses. Recent advances in simulation algorithms now allow such simulations to be pushed to significantly smaller masses without having to compromise in other ways. Contact with chiral perturbation theory can thus be made and many physics questions can be addressed that previously appeared to be inaccessible.