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Comparison of smoothening flows for the topological charge in QCD-like theories

Pietro Butti1,2, Michele Della Morte1, Benjamin Jäger1,2, Sofie Martins1, and J. Tobias Tsang3

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Phys. Rev. D 112, 014504 – Published 7 July, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/53vh-wm6v

Abstract

We investigate properties of the topological charge for several SU(NC) gauge field ensembles for NC=4, 5, 6 with a single fermion in the two-index antisymmetric representation, covering multiple lattice spacings at otherwise approximately constant physical parameters. Comparing the topological charge defined by the Wilson flow and the overimproved DBW2 flow we find that already at small flow times the latter stabilizes on discrete values. We provide evidence that as the lattice spacing is lowered the Wilson flow also separates into discrete sectors at earlier flow times. Adopting the DBW2 definition in the remainder of the analysis, we do not see any evidence of fractional topological charges, which could in principle appear at finite lattice spacing.

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Outline

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Phys. Rev. D 112, 014504– Published 7 July, 2025
  • Received 24 April 2025
  • Accepted 18 June 2025
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3.

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