What is the Top Quark Mass?

Abstract

In this review I give an overview on the conceptual issues involved in the question how to interpret so-called `direct top quark mass measurements', which are based on the kinematic reconstruction of top quark decay products at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). These measurements quote the top mass parameter $m_t^{\mathrm{MC}}$ of Monte-Carlo event generators with current uncertainties of around $0.5$ GeV. At present time the problem of finding a rigorous relation between $m_t^{\mathrm{MC}}$ and top mass renormalization schemes defined in field theory is unresolved and touches perturbative as well as nonperturbative aspects and the limitations of state-of-the-art Monte-Carlo event generators. I review the status of LHC top mass measurements, illustrate how conceptual limitations enter and explain a controversy that has permeated the community in the context of the interpretation problem. Recent advances in acquiring first principle insights are summarized, and it is outlined what else has to be understood to fully resolve the issue. For the time being, I give a recommendation how to deal with the interpretation problem when making top mass dependent theoretical predictions.

arXiv comment23 pages, 10 figures; Invited review prepared for Annual Review of Nuclear and Particle Science 70 (2020)

References in corpus (120)

• The automated computation of tree-level and next-to-leading order differential cross sections, and their matching to parton shower simulations
• An Introduction to PYTHIA 8.2
• A general framework for implementing NLO calculations in shower Monte Carlo programs: the POWHEG BOX
• Event generation with SHERPA 1.1
• Matching NLO QCD computations and parton shower simulations
• Parton distributions from high-precision collider data
• New parton distribution functions from a global analysis of quantum chromodynamics
• Heavy Quark Symmetry
• Parton distributions in the LHC era: MMHT 2014 PDFs
• The total top quark pair production cross-section at hadron colliders through O(alpha_S^4)
• Herwig 7.0 / Herwig++ 3.0 Release Note
• Investigating the near-criticality of the Higgs boson
• Jet substructure as a new Higgs search channel at the LHC
• Measuring masses of semi-invisibly decaying particles pair produced at hadron colliders
• Soft Drop
• Renormalons
• Jet Trimming
• The global electroweak fit at NNLO and prospects for the LHC and ILC
• A critical appraisal of NLO+PS matching methods
• The three loop relation between the \bar {MS} and the pole quark masses
• Parton Distribution Functions, ${\alpha }_s$ and Heavy-Quark Masses for LHC Run II
• On the metastability of the Standard Model vacuum
• Transverse-Momentum-Ordered Showers and Interleaved Multiple Interactions
• Heavy Quark Effective Theory beyond Perturbation Theory: Renormalons, the Pole Mass and the Residual Mass Term
• The top quark and Higgs boson masses and the stability of the electroweak vacuum
• The Pole Mass of The Heavy Quark. Perturbation Theory and Beyond
• String Formation Beyond Leading Colour
• Recombination Algorithms and Jet Substructure: Pruning as a Tool for Heavy Particle Searches
• Thrust at N^3LL with Power Corrections and a Precision Global Fit for alphas(mZ)
• A quark mass definition adequate for threshold problems
• The relation between the $\overline{\mathrm{MS}}$ and the on-shell quark mass at order ${\alpha }_s^3$
• Measuring the running top-quark mass
• Quark mass relations to four-loop order
• Jets from Massive Unstable Particles: Top-Mass Determination
• Aspects Of Heavy Quark Theory
• Stability, Higgs Boson Mass and New Physics
• Colour reconnections in Herwig++
• New formalism for QCD parton showers
• Resummation of $({\beta }_0{\alpha }_s{)}^n$ Corrections in QCD: Techniques and Applications to the $\tau$ Hadronic Width and the Heavy Quark Pole Mass
• Top Jets in the Peak Region: Factorization Analysis with NLL Resummation
• Top-Quark Decay at Next-to-Next-to-Leading Order in QCD
• Top-pair production at the LHC through NNLO QCD and NLO EW
• B decay and the Upsilon mass
• Short Distance Mass of a Heavy Quark at Order α_s^3
• B decays in the upsilon expansion
• Determination of the bottom quark mass from the ${\rm Y}(1S)$ system
• Coherent Parton Showers with Local Recoils
• Dipole Showers and Automated NLO Matching in Herwig++
• An NLO+PS generator for $t\bar{t}$ and $Wt$ production and decay including non-resonant and interference effects
• Simulation of multiple partonic interactions in Herwig++
• Consistent Use of the Standard Model Effective Potential
• Infrared Renormalization Group Flow for Heavy Quark Masses
• Effects of color reconnection on $t\bar{t}$ final states at the LHC
• Top Mass Measurements from Jets and the Tevatron Top-Quark Mass
• Logarithmic accuracy of parton showers: a fixed-order study
• NNLO QCD predictions for fully-differential top-quark pair production at the Tevatron
• Next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order QCD prediction for the top anti-top S-wave pair production cross section near threshold in e+ e- annihilation
• Measurement of the $\mathrm{t}\overline{\mathrm{t}}$ production cross section, the top quark mass, and the strong coupling constant using dilepton events in pp collisions at $\sqrt{s}=$ 13 TeV
• Measurement of the top quark mass in the $t\bar{t}\to$ lepton+jets channel from $\sqrt{s}=8$ TeV ATLAS data and combination with previous results
• Top quark mass measurements at and above threshold at CLIC
• Matching Parton Showers to NLO Computation
• Top-quark pole mass
• Triple collinear emissions in parton showers
• 1S and MSbar Bottom Quark Masses from Upsilon Sum Rules
• Measurement of the t-tbar production cross section in the e-mu channel in proton-proton collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 and 8 TeV
• On the ultimate uncertainty of the top quark pole mass
• The Perturbative Pole Mass in QCD
• Top Quark Mass Calibration for Monte Carlo Event Generators
• Parton showers from the dipole formalism
• Relation between the pole and the minimally subtracted mass in dimensional regularization and dimensional reduction to three-loop order
• Leading-color fully differential two-loop soft corrections to QCD dipole showers
• Non-Abelian Dipole Radiation and the Heavy Quark Expansion
• NLO QCD corrections to W+ W- b anti-b production with leptonic decays in the light of top quark mass and asymmetry measurements
• A new observable to measure the top-quark mass at hadron colliders
• Measurement of the top quark mass in the all-jets final state at $\sqrt{s}=$ 13 TeV and combination with the lepton+jets channel
• Top-Quark Physics at the CLIC Electron-Positron Linear Collider
• A framework for second-order parton showers
• Non-Perturbative Contribution to the Thrust Distribution in $e^{+}{e}^{-}$ Annihilation
• Measurement of masses in the t t-bar system by kinematic endpoints in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV
• Measurements of $t\bar{t}$ differential cross-sections of highly boosted top quarks decaying to all-hadronic final states in $pp$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}=13$ TeV using the ATLAS detector
• Two-loop Jet-Function and Jet-Mass for Top Quarks
• Extracting a Short Distance Top Mass with Light Grooming
• Parton branching at amplitude level
• Determination of the top quark mass circa 2013: methods, subtleties, perspectives
• On the Light Massive Flavor Dependence of the Large Order Asymptotic Behavior and the Ambiguity of the Pole Mass
• The Top-Antitop Threshold at the ILC: NNLL QCD Uncertainties
• Resummation for (boosted) top-quark pair production at NNLO+NNLL' in QCD
• Measurement of the top-quark mass in $t\bar{t}+1$-jet events collected with the ATLAS detector in $pp$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}=8$ TeV
• Parton Shower Uncertainties with Herwig 7: Benchmarks at Leading Order
• Baryon production from cluster hadronization
• The charm/bottom quark mass from heavy quarkonium at N${}^3$LO
• Top Quark Physics at the LHC: A Review of the First Two Years
• On the Cutoff Dependence of the Quark Mass Parameter in Angular Ordered Parton Showers
• Off-shell production of top-antitop pairs in the lepton+jets channel at NLO QCD
• Nonperturbative Corrections to Soft Drop Jet Mass
• The MSR Mass and the $\mathcal{O}({\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}})$ Renormalon Sum Rule
• Measurement of lepton differential distributions and the top quark mass in $t\bar{t}$ production in $pp$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}=8$ TeV with the ATLAS detector
• Coherent Showers in Decays of Colored Resonances
• Measurement of the jet mass in highly boosted t t-bar events from pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 8 TeV
• A theoretical study of top-mass measurements at the LHC using NLO+PS generators of increasing accuracy
• Calibration of the Top-Quark Monte-Carlo Mass
• Parton Shower and Matching Uncertainties in Top Quark Pair Production with Herwig 7
• Measurement of the top quark mass using single top quark events in proton-proton collisions at sqrt(s) = 8 TeV
• Determination of the top quark mass from leptonic observables
• Status and Prospects of Top-Quark Physics
• Top-quark pair-production and decay at high precision
• Fragmentation Uncertainties in Hadronic Observables for Top-quark Mass Measurements
• NLO and off-shell effects in top quark mass determinations
• Measurement of the top quark mass using charged particles in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 8 TeV
• Top physics at the LHC
• Colour Reconnection from Soft Gluon Evolution
• Precision measurement of the top-quark mass in lepton+jets final states
• The Top Quark
• Top quark mass determination from the energy peaks of b-jets and B-hadrons at NLO QCD
• Measurement of the mass of the top quark in decays with a J/psi meson in pp collisions at 8 TeV
• Precise top-quark mass from the diphoton mass spectrum
• Top Quark Physics at the Tevatron
• Top quark mass measurement in radiative events at electron-positron colliders
• A 1993 Look at the Lower Bound on the Top Quark Mass from CP Violation
• Hadronization systematics and top mass reconstruction

Cited by in corpus (45)

• 50 Years of Quantum Chromodynamics
• Higgs inflation with the Holst and the Nieh-Yan term
• The Higgs Portal to Cosmology
• Next-to-next-to-leading order event generation for top-quark pair production
• Overshooting, Critical Higgs Inflation and Second Order Gravitational Wave Signatures
• A New Paradigm for Precision Top Physics: Weighing the Top with Energy Correlators
• Top-pair production at the LHC with MiNNLO${}_{\mathrm{PS}}$
• Critical point Higgs inflation in the Palatini formulation
• Tree-level unitarity in Higgs inflation in the metric and the Palatini formulation
• On the Difference between FOPT and CIPT for Hadronic Tau Decays
• Boosted Top Quarks in the Peak Region with N${}^3$LL Resummation
• Reconciling the Contour-Improved and Fixed-Order Approaches for $\tau$ Hadronic Spectral Moments I: Renormalon-Free Gluon Condensate Scheme
• Reconciling the Contour-Improved and Fixed-Order Approaches for $\tau$ Hadronic Spectral Moments II: Renormalon Norm and Application in ${\alpha }_s$ Determinations
• Measurement of the differential $\mathrm{t}\bar{\mathrm{t}}$ production cross section as a function of the jet mass and extraction of the top quark mass in hadronic decays of boosted top quarks
• Measurement of the top quark mass using a profile likelihood approach with the lepton+jets final states in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV
• Dispelling the $\sqrt{L}$ myth for the High-Luminosity LHC
• Combination of measurements of the top quark mass from data collected by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at $\sqrt{s}$ = 7 and 8 TeV
• Using the $W$ as a Standard Candle to Reach the Top: Calibrating Energy Correlator Based Top Mass Measurements
• Heavy-flavor hadro-production with heavy-quark masses renormalized in the $\overline{\mathrm{MS}}$, MSR and on-shell schemes
• Parameter Estimation using Neural Networks in the Presence of Detector Effects
• Top-quark pole mass extraction at NNLO accuracy, from total, single- and double-differential cross sections for $t\bar{t}+X$ production at the LHC
• Fully Testable Axion Dark Matter within a Minimal $SU(5)$ GUT
• Warm inflation with a heavy QCD axion
• Parameter Inference from Event Ensembles and the Top-Quark Mass
• Combination of inclusive top-quark pair production cross-section measurements using ATLAS and CMS data at $\sqrt{s}=7$ and 8 TeV
• Review of top quark mass measurements in CMS
• Notes on interplay of the QCD and EW perturbative corrections to the pole-running top-quark mass ratio
• Top quark mass measurements at the $t\bar{t}$ threshold with CEPC
• Toponium: the smallest bound state and simplest hadron in quantum mechanics
• Measurement of the top quark pole mass using $\mathrm{t}\bar{\mathrm{t}}$+jet events in the dilepton final state in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV
• Climbing to the Top of the ATLAS 13 TeV data
• The cosmological constant and scale hierarchies with emergent gauge symmetries
• Towards a Higgs mass determination in asymptotically safe gravity with a dark portal
• Precise determination of the top-quark on-shell mass $M_t$ via its scale-invariant perturbative relation to the top-quark $\overline{\mathrm{MS}}$ mass ${\overline{m}}_t({\overline{m}}_t)$
• Investigation of the scale dependence in the MSR and $\overline{\text{MS}}$ top quark mass schemes for the $\mathrm{t}\overline{\mathrm{t}}$ invariant mass differential cross section using LHC data
• Measurement of the top quark mass with the ATLAS detector using $t\bar{t}$ events with a high transverse momentum top quark
• Top-quark mass determination from t-channel single top production at the LHC
• Three-loop jet function for boosted heavy quarks
• Measurement of the top-quark pole mass in dileptonic $t\bar{t}+1\text{-jet}$ events at $\sqrt{s}=13$ TeV with the ATLAS experiment
• An EWPD SMEFT likelihood for the LHC -- and how to improve it with measurements of W and Z boson properties
• Reconciling the FOPT and CIPT Predictions for the Hadronic Tau Decay Rate
• Event shapes and Inclusive Hadron Spectra at FCC-ee energies
• Stability of the Higgs Potential in the Standard Model and Beyond
• Top Quark at the New Physics Frontier
• Relation between pole and running masses of heavy quarks using the principle of maximum conformality