Scaling and topology in the 2-d O(3) σ-model on the lattice with the fixed point action

We study scaling properties and topological aspects of the 2-d O(3) non-linear σ-model on the lattice with the fixed point action recently found by P. Hasenfratz and F. Niedermayer. The behavior of the mass gap confirms the good properties of scaling of the fixed point action. Concerning the topology, lattice classical solutions are proved to be very stable under local minimization of the action; this outcome ensures the reliability of the cooling method for the computation of the topological susceptibility, which indeed reproduces the results of the field theoretical approach. Disagreement is instead observed with a different approach in which the fixed point topological charge operator is used: we argue that the discrepancy is related to the ultraviolet dominated nature of the model. (orig.)