Top and Higgs at the Tevatron: Measurements, Searches, Prospects. Event Selection Production Cross Section Top Quark Mass

In this paper we summarize the status of Top Quark Physics and of searches for the Standard Model Higgs at the Tevatron. Results from both the CDF and D0 experiments are discussed and the prospects for the upcoming Run 2, in the year 2000, are outlined. Much work has been performed on these topics and due to the nature of these proceedings only a brief explanation can be ooered here. For more details the reader should turn to the excellent sources listed in the reference section. 1.1 Introduction The announcement of the discovery of the top quark was made in March 1995 1;2. Since then the two Tevatron experiments, CDF and D0, have analyzed all their data taken during the 1992-1996 \Run 1" period and have been upgrading their detectors to match the high-luminosity running conditions that the Tevatron collider will provide during \Run 2". The results presented here come from datasets corresponding to a total integrated luminosity of about 110 pb ?1 for CDF and about 125 pb ?1 for D0. At the Tevatron top quarks are produced mainly in pairs, via q q anihila-tion 3 , with a cross section of about 5 pb. Therefore only about 600 t t pairs, per experiment, were created during the entire Run 1. When geometrical acceptances and detection eeciencies are folded in, the datasets available for studies are rather small. Nonetheless, as it will be shown here, signiicant information has been extracted about the identity and behaviour of this newest quark. During Run 2 the luminosity is expected to increase by about a factor of twenty, to 2 fb ?1 , and the Tevatron center-of-mass energy is expected to reach 2 TeV. We expect to collect datasets that are about thirty times larger than those in Run 1 which will help improve signiicantly our knowledge about the 1 top quark 4. In the Standard Model (SM) the top quark decays eeectively 100% of the time to a W boson and a b quark. The top decay width is approx. 1.5 Gev (at M top 175 GeV) and the corresponding lifetime is 410 ?25 sec. In this short time there is no hadronization and the top quark decays as a free quark. No hadronic states with top can be formed and there is no toponium spectroscopy to be studied. The signatures for t t pair production depend exclusively on the decays of …