Once top quarks are found, because they are heavy they will allow many new tests of the standard model (SM) and new probes of physics at the 100-GeV scale. In this paper we show how to test the standard-model QCD predictions for the transverse polarization of a top quark produced at the Fermilab Tevatron, Superconducting Super Collider, CERN Large Hadron Collider, and the Next Linear Collider. We also examine the most general form of the $W-t-b$ vertex, and show how to detect effects of non-SM operators. Ways of detecting non-SM $\mathrm{CP}$-violation effects in either the production or the decay of the top quarks and top antiquarks are examined.

• Received 28 June 1991

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.45.124