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A stylized diagram representing the production of a top-antitop pair of quarks
in the high-energy collision between a proton and an antiproton.
The proton is a composite particle, consisting of three quarks (q).
One of these annihiliates with one antiquark from the antiproton.
The energy of this annihilation rematerializes as a top and an antitop quark,
each of which rapidly decays into a W boson and the next lightest quark, a bottom (b) quark.
These particles in turn quckly decay into lighter particles such as electrons (e), muons (µ),
neutrinos (
), and other quarks. In their detectors, physicists search for top quarks by looking for characteristic patterns of electrons or muons and clumps of quarks.
For more information on the top quark:
See Chris Quigg's article "Top-ology" in the May 1997 Physics Today.
Link to Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory's top quark page on their Particle Adventure web site
Link to related Physics News Update item
Link to Fermilab news release on the top quark
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