Thursday, December 10, 2015, 16:00
WHGA Auditorium
Andre Hoang, University of Vienna
Abstract:
Quark masses are not physical quantities due to the confinement
properties of the strong interaction which prohibits quarks or gluons
being physical particles. The story is a more subtle one for the top
quark which has a huge mass close to that of a single gold atom. Due to
its large mass the top quark has features of a physical particle, but at
the same time behaves like all other quarks. This has lead to
complications in the meaning and the interpretation of top quark mass
measurements, which have become increasingly precise in recent years. In
my talk I explain the concepts needed to understand the meaning of the
top quark mass and measurements of it with high precision. I review the
current experimental situation and show ways how to resolve the problem.