As the heaviest known fundamental particle, the top quark has taken a central role in the study of fundamental interactions. Production of top quarks in pairs provides an important probe of strong interactions. The top quark mass is a key fundamental parameter which places a valuable constraint on the Higgs boson mass and electroweak symmetry breaking. Observations of the relative rates and kinematics of top quark final states constrain potential new physics. In many cases, the tests available with study of the top quark are both critical and unique. Large increases in data samples from the Fermilab Tevatron have been coupled with major improvements in experimental techniques to produce many new precision measurements of the top quark. The first direct evidence for electroweak production of top quarks has been obtained, with a resulting direct determination of V{sub tb}. Several of the properties of the top quark have been measured. Progress has also been made in obtaining improved limits on potential anomalous production and decay mechanisms. This review presents an overview of recent theoretical and experimental developments in this field. We also provide a brief discussion of the implications for further efforts.

The Evidence for the Top Quark offers both a historical and philosophical perspective on an important recent discovery in particle physics: the first evidence for the elementary particle known as the top quark. Drawing on published reports, oral histories, and internal documents from the large collaboration that performed the experiment, Kent Staley explores in detail the controversies and politics that surrounded this major scientific result.At the same time the book seeks to defend an objective theory of scientific evidence based on error probabilities.

Twenty years after its discovery in 1995 by the CDF and D0 collaborations at the Tevatron proton-antiproton collider at Fermilab, the top quark still undergoes intensive studies at the Tevatron and the LHC at CERN. In this article, recent top quark physics results from CDF and D0 are reported. In particular, measurements of single top quark and double top quark production, the $t\bar{t}$ forward-backward asymmetry and the top quark mass are discussed.

In an epoch when particle physics is awaiting a major step forward, the Large Hydron Collider (LHC) at CERN, Geneva will soon be operational. It will collide a beam of high energy protons with another similar beam circulation in the same 27 km tunnel but in the opposite direction, resulting in the production of many elementary particles some never created in the laboratory before. It is widely expected that the LHC will discover the Higgs boson, the particle which supposedly lends masses to all other fundamental particles. In addition, the question as to whether there is some new law of physics at such high energy is likely to be answered through this experiment. The present volume contains a collection of articles written by international experts, both theoreticians and experimentalists, from India and abroad, which aims to acquaint a non-specialist with some basic issues related to the LHC. At the same time, it is expected to be a useful, rudimentary companion of introductory exposition and technical expertise alike, and it is hoped to become unique in its kind. The fact that there is substantial Indian involvement in the entire LHC endeavour, at all levels including fabrication, physics analysis procedures as well as theoretical studies, is also amply brought out in the collection.

In this thesis, the first measurement of the running of the top quark mass is presented. This is a fundamental quantum effect that had never been studied before. Any deviation from the expected behaviour can be interpreted as a hint of the presence of physics beyond the Standard Model. All relevant aspects of the analysis are extensively described and documented. This thesis also describes a simultaneous measurement of the inclusive top quark-antiquark production cross section and the top quark mass in the simulation. The measured cross section is also used to precisely determine the values of the top quark mass and the strong coupling constant by comparing to state-of-the-art theoretical predictions. All the theoretical and experimental aspects relevant to the results presented in this thesis are discussed in the initial chapters in a concise but complete way, which makes the material accessible to a wider audience.

This will be a required acquisition text for academic libraries. More than ten years after its discovery, still relatively little is known about the top quark, the heaviest known elementary particle. This extensive survey summarizes and reviews top-quark physics based on the precision measurements at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider, as well as examining in detail the sensitivity of these experiments to new physics. Finally, the author provides an overview of top quark physics at the Large Hadron Collider.

The aim of particle physics is the understanding of elementary particles and their interactions. The current theory of elementary particle physics, the Standard Model, contains twelve different types of fermions which (neglecting gravity) interact through the gauge bosons of three forces. In addition a scalar particle, the Higgs boson, is needed for theoretical consistency. These few building blocks explain all experimental results found in the context of particle physics, so far. Nevertheless, it is believed that the Standard Model is only an approximation to a more complete theory. First of all the fourth known force, gravity, has withstood all attempts to be included until now. Furthermore, the Standard Model describes several features of the elementary particles like the existence of three families of fermions or the quantisation of charges, but does not explain these properties from underlying principles. Finally, the lightness of the Higgs boson needed to explain the symmetry breaking is difficult to maintain in the presence of expected corrections from gravity at high scales. This is the so called hierarchy problem. In addition astrophysical results indicate that the universe consists only to a very small fraction of matter described by the Standard Model. Large fractions of dark energy and dark matter are needed to describe the observations. Both do not have any correspondence in the Standard Model. Also the very small asymmetry between matter and anti-matter that results in the observed universe built of matter (and not of anti-matter) cannot be explained until now. It is thus an important task of experimental particle physics to test the predictions of the Standard Model to the best possible accuracy and to search for deviations pointing to necessary extensions or modifications of our current theoretical understanding. The top quark was predicted to exist by the Standard Model as the partner of the bottom quark. It was first observed in 1995 by the Tevatron experiments CDF and D0 and was the last of the quarks to be discovered. As the partner of the bottom quark the top quark is expected to have quantum numbers identical to that of the other known up-type quarks. Only the mass is a free parameter. We now know that it is more than 30 times heavier than the next heaviest quark, the bottom quark. Thus, within the Standard Model all production and decay properties are fully defined. Having the complete set of quarks further allows to verify constraints that the Standard Model puts on the sum of all quarks or particles. This alone is reason enough to experimentally study the top quark properties. The high value of the top quark mass and its closeness to the electroweak scale has inspired people to speculate that the top quark could have a special role in the electroweak symmetry breaking. Confirming the expected properties of the top quark experimentally establishes the top quark as we expect it to be. Any deviation from the expectations gives hints to new physics that may help to solve the outstanding questions. In this review the recent results on top quark properties obtained by the Tevatron experiments CDF and D0 are summarized. At the advent of the LHC special emphasis is given to the basic measurement methods and the dominating systematic uncertainties. After a short introduction to the Standard Model and the experimental environment in the remainder of this chapter, Chapter 2 describes the current status of top quark mass measurements. Then measurments of interaction properties are described in Chapter 3. Finally, Chapter 4 deals with analyses that consider hypothetical particles beyond the Standard Model in the observed events.