New method to detect a heavy top quark at the Fermilab Tevatron

Abstract

We present a new method to detect a heavy top quark with mass ∼ 180 GeV at the upgraded Fermilab Tevatron ($\sqrt{S}=2\mathrm{}$ TeV and integrated luminosity 100 ${\mathrm{pb}}^{-1\mathrm{}}$) and the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC) via the $W$-gluon fusion process. We show that an almost perfect efficiency for the "kinematic $b$ tagging" can be achieved due to the characteristic features of the transverse momentum $P_T$ and rapidity $Y$ distributions of the spectator quark which emitted the virtual $W$. Hence, we can reconstruct the invariant mass $M^{e\nu b}$ and see a sharp peak within a 5-GeV-wide bin of the $M^{e\nu b}$ distribution. We conclude that more than one year of running is needed to detect a 180-GeV top quark at the upgraded Tevatron via the $W$-gluon fusion process. Its detection becomes easier at the SSC due to a larger event rate.