[Charles H. (The_r0nin)]

Hmmm. I'm a bit confused by this journalist's description of the Fermilab collisions. The article says that "When the accelerator smashes a quark and an anti-quark together, a top quark and an anti-top quark are occasionally created..." It was my understanding that free-standing quarks could not be created or observed; the amount of energy necessary to drag a quark out of another particle (due to the Strong force) would be enough to create another quark, so efforts to "liberate" quarks simply result in another composite particle. Did I miss something major, and do they actually have a collider that will accelerate and smash quarks? This has got to be journalist error...

[Physicist]

Well, the article isn't inaccurate; the quark and antiquark that collide actually reside in a proton and antiproton, respectively, at the time of the collision. That is to say, the accelerator collides a proton with an antiproton, but the actual quantum event that generates the top pair is an interaction between two of the pointlike constituent particles. The other constituent particles are just along for the ride, and are often referred to as "spectator" quarks.

The top and antitop quarks do not form hadrons, not through any mechanism that prevents their confinement, but by virtue of the fact that they decay so quickly. They decay in a time that is very short compared to the time it takes to form the hadrons.

[PatrickHenry]

I'm delighted that Physicist responded to your question to which you pinged him and me; however, let the record be clear: I had no clue as to how to answer your question.