Localization and chiral symmetry in three flavor domain wall QCD

We present results for the dependence of the residual mass of domain wall fermions on the size of the fifth dimension and its relation to the density and localization properties of low-lying eigenvectors of the corresponding Hermitian Wilson Dirac operator in three flavor domain wall QCD. Using the DBW2 and Iwasaki gauge actions, we generate ensembles of configurations with a 16(3) x 32 space-time volume and an extent of 8 in the fifth dimension for the sea quarks. We demonstrate the existence of a regime where the degree of locality, the size of chiral symmetry breaking, and the rate of topology change can be acceptable for inverse lattice spacings a(-1)>= 1.6 GeV, enabling a programme of simulations of 2 + 1 flavor QCD to be conducted safely in this region of parameter space.