  We investigate SU(2) gauge fields topology using new approach, which exploits
the well known connection between SU(2) gauge theory and quaternionic
projective sigma-models and allows to formulate the topological charge density
entirely in terms of sigma-model fields. The method is studied in details and
for thermalized vacuum configurations is shown to be compatible with
overlap-based definition. We confirm that the topological charge is distributed
in localized four dimensional regions which, however, are not compatible with
instantons. Topological density bulk distribution is investigated at different
lattice spacings and is shown to possess some universal properties.
