Top quark physics at the Tevatron using tt events

The top quark is the highest-mass fundamental constituent of matter observed so far. Because of this large mass, top quark interactions might receive sizable contributions from new heavy particles that impact its production and decays. Evidence for such effects can be observed as deviations from standard model expectations or as the production of exotic new particles, among them the Higgs particle. Over the past fifteen years of experimentation at the Tevatron, detailed studies have been performed and analysis techniques have been developed that have resulted in precision mass and cross section measurements and have led to more stringent limits on new phenomena. Many of these results and techniques, including a few puzzling signatures, are becoming the basis for research at higher energies at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.