Future of lattice calculations with staggered sea quarks

The MILC collaboration for some years has been creating gauge ensembles with 2+1 flavors of asqtad or improved staggered quarks. There are some 40 ensembles covering a wide range of  uark mass and lattice spacing, thus allowing  control of the chiral and continuum limits.  An extensive review of that program has been published in Reviews of Modern Physics.

Recently, MILC has begun a new program using HPQCD's highly improved staggered quark (HISQ) action.  This action has smaller taste symmetry breaking than asqtad and improved scaling properties.  We also include a dynamical charm quark in these calculations.

This talk will discuss the achievements of the asqtad program, what has been done so far with HISQ quarks, and then consider what future ensembles will be created and their impact.