Precision B Physics in the LHC Era: Visions for the Next Decade

by Robert Fleischer (CERN)

Thursday 19 Mar 2009, 16:45 → 18:15 Europe/Berlin

Hoersaal MPI

The B-meson system provides a powerful probe for a stringent testing of the Standard-Model description of the quark-flavour sector and the CP violation residing there. Valuable results from the e^+e^- B factories at KEK and SLAC have allowed us to confront various theoretical strategies with data and have impressively established CP violation in the B sector. Moreover, measurements of decays of B_s mesons at the Tevatron (FNAL) have recently led to quite some excitement in the physics community. Since the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN will soon take over, a new era in the quest for ``new physics" is just ahead of us. After presenting the corresponding theoretical framework and discussing the current status of the interpretation of the B-decay data, we shall focus on the key targets of the high-presicion B-physics programme at the LHC, where the B_s-meson system plays a central role, allowing us to enter a still largely unexplored territory of the flavour-physics landscape. These studies and their synergy with the high-Q2 collider physics programme at the LHC may revolutionize our picture of the Universe in the next decade.