Indirect determinations of the top quark mass

TL;DR

This paper analyzes indirect methods to determine the top quark mass within the Standard Model, emphasizing flavor physics and electroweak data, and discusses future prospects for achieving high precision.

Contribution

It introduces a systematic procedure to identify observables affected by quantum corrections enhanced by the top quark mass and explores their potential for precise top mass determination.

Findings

Flavor physics can potentially measure M_t with accuracy below 2 GeV.

Improved W mass measurements could determine M_t with accuracy below 1 GeV.

Current data provide only a poor determination of M_t via indirect methods.

Abstract

We give a complete analysis of indirect determinations of the top quark mass in the Standard Model by introducing a systematic procedure to identify observables that receive quantum corrections enhanced by powers of $M_t$. We propose to use flavour physics as a tool to extract the top quark mass. Although present data give only a poor determination, we show how future theoretical and experimental progress in flavour physics can lead to an accuracy in $M_t$ well below 2 GeV. We revisit determinations of $M_t$ from electroweak data, showing how an improved measurement of the $W$ mass leads to an accuracy well below 1 GeV.