Old Journal Club: ‘Threshold production of heavy top quarks: QCD and the Higgs boson’

Sergio Rodríguez (IFT) will present “Threshold production of heavy top quarks: QCD and the Higgs boson” by Matthew J. Strassler and Michael E. Peskin.

Abstract: 

We calculate the threshold cross section for 𝑒+𝑒−→tt¯ to leading-logarithmic order in QCD, using a nonrelativistic approximation suggested by Fadin and Khoze. We study the mass range 100≤𝑚𝑡≤250 GeV, and show that the cross section is an excellent measure of α𝑠 for the lower portion of the mass range, while for a heavier top quark it is sensitive to the mass and couplings of the Higgs boson. We argue that a precise determination of 𝑚𝑡 and a measurement of Γ𝑡 are possible. We also show that nonperturbative effects are small, confirming that the tt¯ threshold is a detailed perturbative test of the standard model.

More info: https://journals.aps.org/prd/pdf/10.1103/PhysRevD.43.1500