  We study on the lattice the topology of SU(2) and SU(3) Yang-Mills theories
at zero temperature and of QCD at temperatures around the phase transition. To
smooth out dislocations and the UV noise we cool the configurations with an
action which has scale invariant instanton solutions for instanton size above
about 2.3 lattice spacings. The corresponding "improved" topological charge
stabilizes at an integer value after few cooling sweeps. At zero temperature
the susceptibility calculated from this charge (about (195MeV)^4 for SU(2) and
(185 MeV)^4 for SU(3)) agrees very well with the phenomenological expectation.
At the minimal amount of cooling necessary to resolve the structure in terms of
instantons and anti-instantons we observe a dense ensemble where the total
number of peaks is by a factor 5-10 larger than the net charge. The average
size observed for these peaks at zero temperature is about 0.4-0.45 fm for
SU(2) and 0.5-0.6 fm for SU(3). The size distribution changes very little with
further cooling, although in this process up to 90% of the peaks disappear by
pair annihilation. For QCD we observe below T_c a reduction of the topological
susceptibility as an effect of the dynamical fermions. Nevertheless also here
the instantons form a dense ensemble with general characteristics similar to
those of the quenched theory. A further drop in the susceptibility above T_c is
also in rough agreement with what has been observed for pure SU(3). We see no
clear signal for dominant formation of instanton - anti-instanton molecules.
