Precision study of the SU(3) topological susceptibility in the continuum

We compute the topological susceptibility chi_t in SU(3) lattice gauge theory using fermionic methods based on the Atiyah-Singer index theorem. Near the phase transition we find a smooth crossover behavior for chi_t with values decreasing from (191(5) MeV)^4 to (100(5) MeV)^4 as we increase the temperature from 0.88 T_c to 1.31 T_c, showing that topological excitations exist far above T_c. Our study is the first large scale analysis of the topological susceptibility at high t...

Using Monte Carlo simulations with overrelaxation, we have equilibrated lattices up to $\beta=2.928$, size $60^4$, for pure SU(2) lattice gauge theory with the Wilson action. We calculate topological charges with the standard cooling method and find that they become more reliable with increasing $\beta$ values and lattice sizes. Continuum limit estimates of the topological susceptibility $\chi$ are obtained of which we favor $\chi^{1/4}/T_c=0.643\,(12)$, where $T_c$ is the SU...

The large volume behaviour of the topological susceptibility in SU(3) gauge theory is investigated on the lattice to establish an upper limit on the parity violating terms.

We determine the topological susceptibility $\chi$ at T=0 in pure SU(3) gauge theory and its behaviour at finite $T$ across the deconfining transition. We use an improved topological charge density operator. $\chi$ drops sharply by one order of magnitude at the deconfining temperature $T_c$.

Non-analyticity of QCD with a \theta term at \theta=0 may signal a spontaneous breaking of both parity and time reversal invariance. We address this issue by investigating the large volume limit of the topological susceptibility $\chi$ in pure SU(3) gauge theory. We obtain an upper bound for the symmetry breaking order parameter <Q> and, as a byproduct, the value \chi=(173.4(+/- 0.5)(+/- 1.2)(+1.1 / -0.2) MeV)^4 at \beta=6 (a approx= 0.1 fermi). The errors are the statistical...

The topological susceptibility is computed in the SU(3) gauge theory at temperatures $T$ above the critical temperature $T_{\rm c}$ using master-field simulations of very large lattices, where the infamous topology-freezing issue is effectively bypassed. Up to $T=2.0\,T_{\rm c}$ no unusually large lattice effects are observed and the results obtained in the continuum limit confirm the expected rapid decay of the susceptibility with increasing temperature. As a byproduct, the ...

We investigate the topological structure of the vacuum in SU(3) lattice gauge theory. We use under-relaxed cooling to remove the high-frequency fluctuations and a variety of "filters" to identify the topological charges in the resulting smoothened field configurations. We find a densely packed vacuum with an average instanton size, in the continuum limit, of about 0.5 fm. The density at large sizes decreases as a large inverse power of the size. At small sizes we see some sig...

The status of topology on the lattice is reviewed. Recent results show that the topological susceptibility chi can be unambigously determined. Different methods, if properly implemented, give results consistent with each other. For SU(3) the Witten-Veneziano prediction is confirmed. Preliminary results for full QCD are presented. The problem there is that the usual hybrid montecarlo algorithm has severe difficulty to thermalize topology. Possible ways out are under study.

We present a study of the topological susceptibility in lattice QCD with two degenerate flavors of dynamical quarks. The topological charge is measured on gauge configurations generated with a renormalization group improved gauge action and a mean field improved clover quark action at three values of $\beta=6/g^2$, corresponding to lattice spacings of $a \approx 0.22$, 0.16 and 0.11 fm, with four sea quark masses at each $\beta$. The study is supplemented by simulations of pu...

We study the topological content of the SU(3) vacuum using a method based on RG mapping developed for SU(2) gauge theory earlier. RG mapping, in which a series of APE-smearing steps is done while tracking the observables, reduces the short range fluctuations in the gauge fields while preserving the long structure. This allows us to study the instanton size distribution and topological susceptibility for SU(3) gauge theory. We arrive at a value for the topological susceptibili...