Top quark physics: A tool for discoveries

The top quark, the heaviest known elementary particle discovered at the Fermilab Tevatron almost twenty years ago, has taken a central role in the study of fundamental interactions. The top quark behaves differently from all other quarks due to its large mass and its correspondingly short lifetime. Its large mass suggests that it may play a special role in nature. The top quark decays before it hadronizes, passing its spin information on to its decay products. Therefore, it is possible to measure observables that depend on the top quark spin, providing a unique environment for tests of the standard model and for new physics searches. With approximately 10 fb(-1) of luminosity delivered to each experiment at the Tevatron, and about 20 fb(-1) collected by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at the Large Hadron Collider in the first three years of operation, top quark physics is at a turning point from first studies to precision measurements with sensitivity to new physics processes. This report summarizes the latest experimental measurements and studies of top quark properties and rare decays.