Coexistence of monopoles and instantons for different topological charge definitions and lattice actions

Abstract

We compute instanton sizes and study correlation functions between instantons and monopoles in maximum abelian projection within SU(2) lattice QCD at finite temperature. We compare several definitions of the topological charge, different lattice actions and methods of reducing quantum fluctuations. The average instanton size turns out to be $\sigma \approx 0.2$ fm. The correlation length between monopoles and instantons is $\zeta \approx 0.25$ fm and hardly affected by lattice artifacts as dislocations. We visualize several specific gauge field configurations and show directly that there is an enhanced probability for finding monopole loops in the vicinity of instantons. This feature is independent of the topological charge definition used.