Measuring the running top-quark mass

TL;DR

This paper provides the first direct measurement of the top-quark's running mass using total cross section data from the Tevatron, incorporating advanced NNLO QCD calculations for improved accuracy.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method to determine the running top-quark mass directly from cross section measurements with comprehensive NNLO QCD corrections.

Findings

MSbar top-quark mass: 160.0 +3.3 -3.2 GeV

Pole mass equivalent: 168.9 +3.5 -3.4 GeV

Demonstrates scale dependence and theoretical consistency

Abstract

We present the first direct determination of the running top-quark mass based on the total cross section of top-quark pair-production as measured at the Tevatron. Our theory prediction for the cross section includes various next-to-next-to-leading order QCD contributions, in particular all logarithmically enhanced terms near threshold, the Coulomb corrections at two loops and all explicitly scale dependent terms at NNLO accuracy. The result allows for an exact and independent variation of the renormalization and factorization scales. For Tevatron and LHC we study its dependence on all scales, on the parton luminosity and on the top-quark mass using both the conventional pole mass definition as well as the running mass in the MSbar scheme. We extract for the top-quark an MSbar mass of m(mu=m) = 160.0 +3.3 -3.2 GeV, which corresponds to a pole mass of m_t = 168.9 +3.5 -3.4 GeV.