Combination of the top-quark mass measurements from the Tevatron collider

Abstract

The top quark is the heaviest known elementary particle, with a mass about 40 times larger than the mass of its isospin partner, the bottom quark. It decays almost 100% of the time to a W boson and a bottom quark. Using top-antitop pairs at the Tevatron proton-antiproton collider, the CDF and D0 Collaborations have measured the top quark’s mass in different final states for integrated luminosities of up to 5.8 fb(−1). This paper reports on a combination of these measurements that results in a more precise value of the mass than any individual decay channel can provide. It describes the treatment of the systematic uncertainties and their correlations. The mass value determined is 173.18±0.56 (stat)±0.75 (syst) GeV or 173.18±0.94 GeV, which has a precision of ±0.54%, making this the most precise determination of the top-quark mass.