Abstract: Experimental Probes of Electroweak Scale Physics

The mechanism of electroweak symmetry breaking is one central question in high-energy particle physics, and it is interesting to probe the physics at the electroweak scale from as many directions as possible. Recent experimental investigations into physics at this scale, focusing on the top quark and the Higgs boson, have been conducted with the CDF detector at the Tevatron collider. Measurements of the top quark production rate and properties have indirect implications for our expectations of the Higgs boson mass, and the experimental techniques employed in those measurements can be applied to direct searches for Higgs bosons. This line of research at the Tevatron has proven quite fruitful, and we expect similar efforts in the future at the Large Hadron Collider may offer further insight.