The Top...is it There? A Survey of the CDF and D0 Experiments

This paper describes: (1) features that the top quark must have if it exists, and how those features are inferred from various experiments; (2) how top quarks may be produced; (3) what must be accomplished to directly establish that the top quark has been produced in an experiment. Relevant features of the CDF and D0 detectors are described, as are methods useful in a top-quark search for identifying and detecting various kinds of particles. The author reviews data found by both CDF and D0, and discusses differences between the detectors and the data found with each. 57 figures