We show that the nature of the topological fluctuations in $SU(3)$ gauge theory changes drastically at the finite temperature phase transition. Starting from temperatures right above the phase transition, topological fluctuations come in well separated lumps of unit charges that form a noninteracting ideal gas. Our analysis is based on a novel method to count not only the net topological charge but also separately the number of positively and negatively charged lumps in lattice configurations using the spectrum of the overlap Dirac operator. This enables us to determine the joint distribution of the number of positively and negatively charged topological objects, and we find this distribution to be consistent with that of an ideal gas of unit charged topological objects.

• Received 11 January 2021
• Accepted 27 May 2021

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.103.114510

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Published by the American Physical Society