Approach to the continuum limit of the quenched Hermitian Wilson-Dirac operator - art. no. 034502.

We investigate the approach to the continuum limit of the spectrum of the H ermitian Wilson-Dirac operator in the supercritical mass region for pure ga uge SU(2) and SU(3) backgrounds. For this we study the spectral flow of the Hermitian Wilson-Dirac operator in the range 0 less than or equal to m les s than or equal to 2. We find that the spectrum has a gap for 0<m less than or equal to(1) and that the spectral density at zero, rho(0;m), is non-zer o for m(1)less than or equal to m less than or equal to 2. We find that m(1 )-->0 and, for m not equal 0, rho(0;m)-->0 (exponential in the lattice spac ing) as one goes to the continuum limit. We also compute the topological su sceptibility and the size distribution of the zero modes. The topological s usceptibility scales well in the lattice spacing for both SU(2) and SU(3). The size distribution of the zero modes does not appear to show a peak at a physical scale. [S0556-2821(99)06613-8].