The topological susceptibility of QCD: from Minkowskian to Euclidean theory

Abstract

We show how the topological susceptibility in the Minkowskian theory of QCD is related to the corresponding quantity in the Euclidean theory, which is measured on the lattice. We discuss both the zero-temperature case (T = 0) and the finite-temperature case (T > 0). It is shown that the two quantities are equal when T = 0, while the relation between them is much less trivial when T > 0. The possible existence of ``Kogut-Susskind poles'' in the matrix elements of the topological charge density between states with equal four-momenta turns out to invalidate the equality of these two quantities in a strict sense. However, an equality relation is recovered after one re-defines the Minkowskian topological susceptibility by using a proper infrared regularization.