Revealing topological structure in the SU(2) vacuum Original Research Article

In this paper we derive a simple parametrization of the cycling method developed by us in our earlier work. The new method, called renormalization group (RG) mapping, consists of a series of carefully tuned APE-smearing steps. We study the relation between cycling and RG mapping. We also investigate in detail how smooth instantons and instanton-anti-instanton pairs behave under the RG mapping transformation. We use the RG-mapping technique to study the topological susceptibility and instanton size distribution of SU(2) gauge theory. We find scaling in both quantities in a wide range of coupling values. Our result for the topological susceptibility, χ14 = 220(6) MeV, agrees with our earlier results.