Quantitative comparison of filtering methods in lattice QCD

Abstract

We systematically compare filtering methods used to extract topological excitations (like instantons, calorons, monopoles and vortices) from lattice gauge configurations, namely APE-smearing and spectral decompositions based on lattice Dirac and Laplace operators. Each of these techniques introduces ambiguities, which can invalidate the interpretation of the results. We show, however, that all these methods, when handled with care, reveal very similar topological structures. Hence, these common structures are free of ambiguities and faithfully represent infrared degrees of freedom in the QCD vacuum. As an application we discuss an interesting power-law for the clusters of filtered topological charge.

6 pages, 18 plots in 5 figures; final version as published in EPJ A; section 4 was added

References in corpus (7)

• Exact chiral symmetry, topological charge and related topics
• A new approach to Ginsparg-Wilson fermions
• Highly-improved lattice field-strength tensor
• Revealing Topological Structure in the SU(2) Vacuum
• On the Local Structure of Topological Charge Fluctuations in QCD
• Testing the self-duality of topological lumps in SU(3) lattice gauge theory
• Laplacian modes probing gauge fields

Cited by in corpus (20)

• Theta dependence of SU(N) gauge theories in the presence of a topological term
• Gauge bosons at zero and finite temperature
• Vacuum structure revealed by over-improved stout-link smearing compared with the overlap analysis for quenched QCD
• Confinement, chiral symmetry, and the lattice
• Topology of dynamical lattice configurations including results from dynamical overlap fermions
• Dyons near the transition temperature in lattice QCD
• Topology via Spectral Projectors with Staggered Fermions
• Topology near the transition temperature in lattice gluodynamics analyzed by low lying modes of the overlap Dirac operator
• Fractal dimension of the topological charge density distribution in SU(2) lattice gluodynamics
• Dyon structures in the deconfinement phase of lattice gluodynamics: topological clusters, holonomies and Abelian monopoles
• Wilson mass dependence of the overlap topological charge density
• Anomalies, gauge field topology, and the lattice
• Comparing topological charge definitions using topology fixing actions
• Ultraviolet filtering of lattice configurations and applications to Monte Carlo dynamics
• QCD propagators and vertices from lattice QCD (in memory of Michael Müller-Preußker)
• Topological zero modes at nonzero chemical potential
• The topological susceptibility from grand canonical simulations in the interacting instanton liquid model: zero temperature calibrations and numerical framework
• Propagators and topology
• Filtered topological structure of the QCD vacuum: Effects of dynamical quarks
• The dependence of overlap topological charge density on Wilson mass parameter