Top quark mass and cross sections in ATLAS and CMS

TL;DR

This paper reviews recent measurements of the top quark mass and production cross sections at ATLAS and CMS, highlighting their precision and implications for testing QCD and determining fundamental parameters.

Contribution

It summarizes the latest experimental results on top quark properties from ATLAS and CMS, emphasizing the high precision achieved and discussing their theoretical interpretations.

Findings

Measurements reach or surpass theoretical calculation precision

Top quark mass is extracted with high accuracy from decay products

Results challenge and refine perturbative QCD models

Abstract

With the large data set delivered during the second run of the CERN LHC, inclusive and differential measurements of the top quark-antiquark production cross section at the ATLAS and CMS experiments often reach a precision that is comparable or superior to that of the corresponding theoretical calculations. The results of these measurements can be used to test the validity of perturbative quantum chromodynamics (QCD), and to precisely extract the values of parameters of the QCD Lagrangian such as the top quark mass ($m_\mathrm{t}$). The value of $m_\mathrm{t}$ can also be measured, with higher precision, by fully or partially reconstructing the invariant mass of the top quark decay products. However, the results of these measurements lack a clear theoretical interpretation. In these proceedings, the most recent measurements of the top quark mass and cross sections by ATLAS and CMS are presented.