Toward Determination of m_t at 50 MeV Accuracy

Abstract

The top quark mass will be determined to high accuracy from the shape of the ttbar total production cross section in the threshold region at a future linear e+e- collider. Presently the estimated statistical error in the measurement of the MSbar mass of the top quark is \sim 50 MeV, while the estimated theoretical error is 150-200 MeV. In order to reduce the theoretical uncertainty to below 50 MeV, we have recently computed an important part of the higher-order corrections. We deomonstrate the significance of the calculated correction.