Eur. Phys. J. C (2008) 57: 309-492
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-008-0716-1

Review

B, D and K decays

¹ Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, USA
² Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada
³ Durham University, IPPP, Durham, UK
⁴ Università di Roma La Sapienza and INFN, Rome, Italy
⁵ Universität Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, Germany
⁶ RWTH Aachen, Aachen, Germany
⁷ Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Batavia, IL, USA
⁸ Queen Mary, University of London, London, UK
⁹ University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, USA
¹⁰ Max-Planck-Institut für Physik, München, Germany
¹¹ Institut für Physik, Universität Dortmund, Dortmund, Germany
¹² LAPP, Université de Savoie, IN2P3-CNRS, Annecy-le-Vieux, France
¹³ ICTP, Trieste, Italy
¹⁴ National Central University, Chung-li, Taiwan
¹⁵ University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI, USA
¹⁶ University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway
¹⁷ Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, München, Germany
¹⁸ CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
¹⁹ Technische Universität München, Garching, Germany
²⁰ The University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK
²¹ Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA
²² University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA
²³ Università di Roma Tre and INFN, Rome, Italy
²⁴ INFN, Bari, Italy
²⁵ Università di Calabria and INFN Cosenza, Cosenza, Italy
²⁶ LPT, CNRS/Université de Paris-Sud 11, Orsay, France
²⁷ University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
²⁸ IPNP, Charles University in Prague, Prague, Czech Republic
²⁹ NIC, FZ Jülich and DESY Zeuthen, Jülich, Germany
³⁰ Imperial College, London, UK
³¹ ETH, Zürich, Switzerland
³² PSI, Villigen, Switzerland
³³ Ljubljana University and Jozef Stefan Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia
³⁴ Universität Siegen, Siegen, Germany
³⁵ Università di Torino and INFN, Torino, Italy
³⁶ University of Warwick, Coventry, UK
³⁷ Università di Pisa, SNS and INFN, Pisa, Italy
³⁸ University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
³⁹ University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia
⁴⁰ ITEP, Moscow, Russia
⁴¹ Technion, Haifa, Israel
⁴² Universität Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland
⁴³ KEK and Graduate University for Advanced Studies (Sokendai), Tsukuba, Japan
⁴⁴ IFCA, Santander, Spain
⁴⁵ CalTech, Pasadena, CA, USA
⁴⁶ SLAC, Stanford, CA, USA
⁴⁷ Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan
⁴⁸ Saga University, Saga, Japan
⁴⁹ SNS and INFN, Pisa, Italy
⁵⁰ INFN, LNF, Frascati, Italy
⁵¹ Universität Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany
⁵² Institut für Hochenergiephysik, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien, Austria
⁵³ Nuclear Physics Institute, Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia
⁵⁴ Warsaw University, Warsaw, Poland
⁵⁵ University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK
⁵⁶ Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, USA
⁵⁷ Skobeltsin Institute of Nuclear Physics, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia
⁵⁸ Università di Genova and INFN, Genova, Italy
⁵⁹ Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, USA
⁶⁰ Ecole Polytechnique, CNRS, Palaiseau, France
⁶¹ Università di Pavia and INFN, Pavia, Italy
⁶² Université de Clermont-Ferrand, Clermont-Ferrand, France
⁶³ Enrico Fermi Institute, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA
⁶⁴ Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland
⁶⁵ Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, IFAE, Barcelona, Spain
⁶⁶ LAPTH, Annecy-le-Vieux, France
⁶⁷ Universität Bern, Bern, Switzerland
⁶⁸ Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK
⁶⁹ Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY, USA
⁷⁰ Universität Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany
⁷¹ LAL, IN2P3-CNRS and Université de Paris-Sud, Orsay, France
⁷² Università di Bologna and INFN, Bologna, Italy
⁷³ Universität Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

^* e-mail: f.muheim@ed.ac.uk

Received: 19 February 2008
Revised: 15 August 2008
Published online: 12 November 2008

Abstract

The present report documents the results of Working Group 2: B, D and K decays, of the workshop on Flavor in the Era of the LHC, held at CERN from November 2005 through March 2007.

With the advent of the LHC, we will be able to probe New Physics (NP) up to energy scales almost one order of magnitude larger than it has been possible with present accelerator facilities. While direct detection of new particles will be the main avenue to establish the presence of NP at the LHC, indirect searches will provide precious complementary information, since most probably it will not be possible to measure the full spectrum of new particles and their couplings through direct production. In particular, precision measurements and computations in the realm of flavor physics are expected to play a key role in constraining the unknown parameters of the Lagrangian of any NP model emerging from direct searches at the LHC.

The aim of Working Group 2 was twofold: on the one hand, to provide a coherent up-to-date picture of the status of flavor physics before the start of the LHC; on the other hand, to initiate activities on the path towards integrating information on NP from high-p _T and flavor data.

This report is organized as follows: in Sect. 1, we give an overview of NP models, focusing on a few examples that have been discussed in some detail during the workshop, with a short description of the available computational tools for flavor observables in NP models. Section 2 contains a concise discussion of the main theoretical problem in flavor physics: the evaluation of the relevant hadronic matrix elements for weak decays. Section 3 contains a detailed discussion of NP effects in a set of flavor observables that we identified as “benchmark channels” for NP searches. The experimental prospects for flavor physics at future facilities are discussed in Sect. 4. Finally, Sect. 5 contains some assessments on the work done at the workshop and the prospects for future developments.