A precision measurement of the mass of the top quark

Abazov, V. M. ; Abbott, B. ; Mondal, N. K. ; et., al (2004) A precision measurement of the mass of the top quark Nature, 429 . pp. 638-642. ISSN 0028-0836

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Official URL: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v429/n6992/ab...

Related URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature02589

Abstract

The standard model of particle physics contains parameters-such as particle masses-whose origins are still unknown and which cannot be predicted, but whose values are constrained through their interactions. In particular, the masses of the top quark (Mt) and W boson (MW) constrain the mass of the long-hypothesized, but thus far not observed, Higgs boson. A precise measurement of Mt can therefore indicate where to look for the Higgs, and indeed whether the hypothesis of a standard model Higgs is consistent with experimental data. As top quarks are produced in pairs and decay in only about 10-24 s into various final states, reconstructing their masses from their decay products is very challenging. Here we report a technique that extracts more information from each top-quark event and yields a greatly improved precision (of ± 5.3 GeV/c) when compared to previous measurements. When our new result is combined with our published measurement in a complementary decay mode and with the only other measurements available, the new world average for Mt becomes4 178.0± 4.3 GeV/c2. As a result, the most likely Higgs mass increases from the experimentally excluded value of 96 to 117 GeV/c2, which is beyond current experimental sensitivity. The upper limit on the Higgs mass at the 95% confidence level is raised from 219 to 251 GeV/c 2.

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