Spectral flow, chiral condensate and topology in lattice QCD

We study the spectral flow of the Wilson-Dirac operator H(m) with and without an additional Sheikholeslami-Wohlert (SW) term on a variety of SU(3) lattice gauge field ensembles in the range 0 ≤ m ≤ 2. We have used ensembles generated from the Wilson gauge action, an improved gauge action, and several two-flavor dynamical quark ensembles. Two regions in m provide a generic characterization of the spectrum. In region I defined by m ≤ m1, the spectrum has a gap. In region II defined by m1 ≤ m ≤ 2, the gap is closed. The level crossings in H(m) that occur in region II correspond to localized eigenmodes and the localization size decreases monotonically with the crossing point down to a size of about one lattice spacing. These small modes are unphysical, and we find the topological susceptibility is relatively stable in the part of region II where the small modes cross. We argue that the lack of a gap in region II is expected to persist in the infinite volume limit at any gauge coupling. The presence of a gap is important for the implementation of domain wall fermions. PACS #: 11.15.Ha, 11.30.Rd, 11.30.Fs