Topological charge of (lattice) gauge fields

Using recently derived explicit formulae for the 2- and 3-cochains in SU(2) guage theory, we are able to integrate the Chern-Simons density analytically. We arrive - in SU(2) - at a local algebraic expression for the topological charge, which is the sum of local winding numbers associated with the corners (lattice points) of the cells covering the manifold plus contributions from the possible isolated gauge singularities which manifest themselves as ''vortices'' in the 1-, 2- or 3-cochains. Among others we consider hypercubic geometry - i.e. covering the manifold by hypercubes - which is of particular interest to lattice Monte Carlo applications. Finally, we extend our results to SU(3) gauge theory. (orig.)