Comparison of filtering methods in SU(3) lattice gauge theory

TL;DR

This paper compares different filtering methods in SU(3) lattice gauge theory, highlighting their correlations and differences in topological charge structures, especially between quenched and dynamical configurations.

Contribution

It provides a systematic comparison of filtering methods and reveals how dynamical quarks influence the topological structure in lattice gauge configurations.

Findings

Strong correlation between APE and Stout smearing results

Dynamical configurations show more fragmented topological charge density

Smearing must be carefully applied to preserve topological structures

Abstract

We systematically compare filtering methods used to extract topological excitations from lattice gauge configurations. We show that there is a strong correlation of the topological charge densities obtained by APE and Stout smearing. Furthermore, a first quantitative analysis of quenched and dynamical configurations reveals a crucial difference of their topological structure: the topological charge density is more fragmented, when dynamical quarks are present. This fact also implies that smearing has to be handled with great care, not to destroy these characteristic structures.