Production and decay of heavy top quarks

Experimental evidence indicates that the top quark exists and has a mass between 50 and 200 GeV/c{sup 2}. The decays of a top quark with a mass in this range are studied with emphasis placed on the mass region near the threshold for production of real W bosons. Topics discussed are: (1) possible enhancement of strange quark production when M{sub W} + m{sub s} < m{sub t} < M{sub W} + m{sub b}; (2) exclusive decays of T mesons to B and B{asterisk} mesons using the non-relativistic quark model; (3) polarization of intermediate W's in top quark decay as a source of information on the top quark mass. The production of heavy top quarks in an e{sup +}e{sup {minus}} collider with a center-of-mass energy of 2 TeV is studied. The effective-boson approximation for photons, Z{sup 0}'s and W's is reviewed and an analogous approximation for interfaces between photons and Z{sup 0}'s is developed. The cross sections for top quark pair production from photon-photon, photon-Z{sup 0}, Z{sup 0}Z{sup 0}, and W{sup +}W{sup {minus}} fusion are calculated using the effective-boson approximation. Production of top quarks along with anti-bottom quarks via {gamma}W{sup +} and Z{sup 0}W{sup +} fusion is studied. An exact calculationmore » of {gamma}e{sup +} {yields} {bar {nu}}t{bar b} is made and compared with the effective-W approximation. 31 refs., 46 figs.« less