Topologically non-trivial field configurations - interplay of vortices and Dirac eigenmodes Presenter: Stefan Solbrig Stefan Solbrig, Christof Gattringer, Hugo Reinhardt, Jochen Gattnar, Kurt Langfeld, Torsten Tok, Andreas Schäfer Abstract: Gluon field configurations with non-trivial topology play a crucial role in QCD. However, not all pictures describe every feature of the theory. Instantons are related to chiral symmetry breaking whereas center vortices are strongly correlated with confinement. We present evidence that there is a deep connection between these two pictures. To compute eigenvectors and eigenvalues for various lattice gauge field configurations, we use the chirally improved Dirac operator. We find that removing vortices from thermalized configurations also removes the topological content. Applying random changes to raw configurations serves as a consistency check. 1