nLab top quark

Idea

In the standard model of particle physics the top quark is the up-type quark in the third generation of fermions, a heavy quark.

It is the fundamental particle with by far the largest rest mass (after Higgs mechanism). This implies that top quark virtual particles in Feynman diagrams typically gives the dominant contribution to loop effects in perturbative quantum observables, notably in relation to the Higgs field.

Related concepts

flavors of fundamental fermions in the standard model of particle physics:
generation of fermions	1st generation	2nd generation	3d generation
quarks ($q$)
up-type	up quark ($u$)	charm quark ($c$)	top quark ($t$)
down-type	down quark ($d$)	strange quark ($s$)	bottom quark ($b$)
leptons
charged	electron	muon	tauon
neutral	electron neutrino	muon neutrino	tau neutrino
bound states:
mesons	light mesons: pion ($u d$) ρ-meson ($u d$) ω-meson ($u d$) f1-meson a1-meson	strange-mesons: ϕ-meson ($s \bar s$), kaon, K*-meson ($u s$, $d s$) eta-meson ($u u + d d + s s$) charmed heavy mesons: D-meson ($u c$, $d c$, $s c$) J/ψ-meson ($c \bar c$)	bottom heavy mesons: B-meson ($q b$) ϒ-meson ($b \bar b$)
baryons	nucleons: proton $(u u d)$ neutron $(u d d)$

References

The top quark discovery was announced jointly in

• F. Abe et al. (CDF Collaboration), Observation of Top Quark Production in $\bar p p$ Collisions with the Collider Detector at Fermilab, Phys. Rev. Lett. 74, 2626 – Published 3 April 1995 (doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.74.2626)

• S. Abachi et al. (D0 Collaboration), Observation of the Top Quark, Phys. Rev. Lett. 74, 2632 – Published 3 April 1995 (doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.74.2632)

See also

• Wikipedia, Top quark