Physical observables from lattice QCD at fixed topology

Because present Monte Carlo algorithms for lattice QCD may become trapped in a given topological charge sector when one approaches the continuum limit, it is important to understand the effect of calculating at fixed topology. In this work, we show that although the restriction to a fixed topological sector becomes irrelevant in the infinite volume limit, it gives rise to characteristic finite size effects due to contributions from all θ-vacua. We calculate these effects and show how to extract physical results from numerical data obtained at fixed topology.