# Looking for Effects of Topology in the Dirac Spectrum of Staggered Fermions

## 1 Introduction

In the finite-volume scaling regime $`L\mathrm{}`$ with $`L<<1/m_\pi `$ there are detailed analytical predictions for the rescaled microscopic Dirac operator spectrum in gauge field sectors of fixed topological charge $`\nu `$ . We confront these predictions with quenched simulations on staggered fermions, with lattice size $`8^4`$ and $`\beta =5.1`$. More details can be found in our paper .

Random Matrix Theory, or equivalently finite-volume partition functions, can be used to compute *exactly* the microscopic Dirac operator spectral density

$$\rho _s(\zeta )=\underset{V\mathrm{}}{lim}\frac{1}{V}\rho (\frac{\zeta }{V\mathrm{\Sigma }})$$
(1)   
where

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }=\underset{m0}{lim}\underset{V\mathrm{}}{lim}<\overline{\psi }\psi >=\pi \rho (0)$$
(2)   
is the infinite-volume chiral condensate.

At finite lattice spacing, staggered fundamental fermions of SU(3) gauge theory lead to a microscopic Dirac spectrum in the universality class known as the chiral unitary ensemble (chUE). In a quenched gauge field sector of topological charge $`\nu `$, this microscopic spectral density reads

$$\rho _s^{(\nu )}(\zeta )=\pi \rho (0)\frac{\zeta }{2}\{J_\nu (\zeta )^2J_{\nu 1}(\zeta )J_{\nu +1}(\zeta )\}$$
(3)   
As first observed by Verbaarschot , staggered fermions give good agreement with analytical prediction of just the $`\nu `$=0 sector, even when *all* gauge field configurations are summed over. To test whether staggered fermions at similar $`\beta `$-values *are* sensitive to topology at all, we have divided a large number of configurations ($``$17,000) into different topological sectors based on a variant of APE-smearing (see ref.  for the details).

## 2 Classification scheme & Analysis

Using the naively latticized topological charge

$$\nu =\frac{1}{32\pi ^2}d^4x\text{Tr}[F_{\mu \nu }F_{\rho \sigma }]ϵ_{\mu \nu \rho \sigma }$$
(4)   
a given gauge field configuration is assigned an integer topological charge, $`\nu `$, if the rounded-off value of the ‘naive’ $`\nu `$ is stable between 200 and 300 APE-smearing steps. Other configurations ($`37\%`$) are simply rejected.

The rounding-off of the naive $`\nu `$-values makes good sense, as can be seen in figure 2. It shows the distribution of the measured topological charge after 200 smearing steps. The distribution is strongly peaked around quantized values, and our measured $`\nu `$-values are rounded off to the obvious integer assignment. We see some “renormalization” of the topological charge as measured in this way, but this is of no concern for us here. We shall only use the measured $`\nu `$-values to make a classification of the original, un-smeared, configurations.

The staggered Dirac operator spectrum has a $`\pm `$ symmetry, and when we trace a few small eigenvalues as a function of smearing in figure 3, we show only the positive ones.

As expected, we find that $`4\nu `$ eigenvalues become small compared with the rest after very many smearing steps. These are the $`\nu `$ “would be” zero modes of 4 (continuum) flavors on the very smooth configurations.

All measurements of the microscopic Dirac operator spectrum are performed on the original gauge field configurations, classified into different $`\nu `$-sectors according to the smeared values of $`\nu `$. Shown in figure 4 are the spectral densities obtained on configurations classified by $`\nu `$ in that way.

Dashed lines are the analytical predictions for $`\nu `$=1 and 2 in the appropriate graphs, and the solid curve is the analytical prediction for $`\nu `$=0. At this $`\beta `$-value($`\beta =5.1`$) there is no discernible deviation from the $`\nu `$=0 prediction even on configurations that have been classified as $`\nu =\pm 1,\pm 2.`$

We have also compared the exact predictions

$`P_{min}^{\nu =0}(\zeta )`$ $`=`$ $`\pi \rho (0){\displaystyle \frac{\zeta }{2}}e^{\frac{\zeta ^2}{4}}`$   
$`P_{min}^{\nu =1}(\zeta )`$ $`=`$ $`\pi \rho (0){\displaystyle \frac{\zeta }{2}}I_2(\zeta )e^{\frac{\zeta ^2}{4}}`$   
$`P_{min}^{\nu =2}(\zeta )`$ $`=`$ $`\pi \rho (0){\displaystyle \frac{\zeta }{2}}\{I_2^2(\zeta )I_1(\zeta )I_3(\zeta )\}e^{\frac{\zeta ^2}{4}}`$   
for the distribution of just the smallest eigenvalue in the different topological sectors. Even here we see no deviation at all from the $`\nu `$=0 prediction.

It has recently been shown that it is possible to recover the correct sensitivity of staggered fermions to topology at very weak gauge coupling (in the Schwinger model) . With fermions sensitive to gauge field topology, nice agreement with the analytical predictions has been seen even far from the continuum limit, as it should be .

The work of P.H.D. and K.R. was partially supported by EU TMR grant ERBFMRXCT97-0122 and the work of U.M.H by DOE contracts DE-FG05-85ER250000 and DE-FG05-96ER40979. In addition P.H.D. and U.M.H. acknowledge support by NATO Science Collaborative Research Grant CRG 971487.