Probing for instanton constituents with ε-cooling

We use ε-cooling, adjusting at will the order a2 corrections to the lattice action, to study the parameter space of instantons in the background of nontrivial holonomy and to determine the presence and nature of constituents with fractional topological charge at finite and zero temperature for SU(2). As an additional tool, zero-temperature configurations were generated from those at finite temperature with well-separated constituents. This is achieved by 'adiabatically' adjusting the anisotropic coupling used to implement finite temperature on a symmetric lattice. The action and topological charge density, as well as the Polyakov loop and chiral zero-modes are used to analyze these configurations. We also show how cooling histories themselves can reveal the presence of constituents with fractional topological charge. We comment on the interpretation of recent fermion zero-mode studies for thermalized ensembles at small temperatures