Top-quark physics at colliders

The top-quark, the heaviest known elementary particle, is an excellent probe of the fundamental interactions at (sub)attometer distances. Theoretical investigations of the production and decay of these quarks are essential for the analysis of the corresponding experimental data collected at Tevatron and LHC. Any observed deviation from the theoretical predictions could be a sign of new physics beyond the established standard model.

While in the previous funding period the focus was on top-quark pair production we plan in the current funding period (2011-2014) to make precise predictions of the production of single top (anti)quarks at the Tevatron and the LHC.

In addition, we plan to investigate possible new interactions of top quarks. Since top-quark physics is a sensitive tool to explore the mechanism of electroweak symmetry breaking --- realised in the standard model via the Higgs mechansim--- the effects of non-standard Higgs bosons on top quark production will also be investigated.