We consider two quenched, chiral ensembles which are coupled in such a way that a combined chiral symmetry is preserved. The coupling also links the topology of the two systems such that the number of exact zero modes in the coupled system equals the sum of the number of zero modes in the two uncoupled systems counted with sign. The canceled modes that turn nontopological due to the coupling become near-zero modes at small coupling. We analyze the distribution of these would-be zero modes using effective field theory. The distribution is universal and, in the limit of small coupling, the would-be zero modes are distributed according to a finite size chiral Gaussian ensemble, where the width of the distribution scales as the inverse square root of the volume.

• Received 30 September 2016

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.95.074516