Smearing Center Vortices

We smear Z(2) center vortices in lattice gauge configurations such as to recover thick vortices with full SU(2) Yang-Mills information. In particular, we address the problem that using Z(2) configurations in conjunction with overlap (or chirally improved) fermions is problematic due to their lack of smoothness. Our method allows us to regain this smoothness and simultaneously maintain the center vortex structure. We verify our method with various gluonic and fermionic observables and find good agreement between smeared vortex configurations and full SU(2).