Semileptonic B Meson Decays
Semileptonic decays of B mesons play a critical role in the determination of the magnitude of the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa (CKM) matrix elements V{sub cb} and V{sub ub}. These two quantities are fundamental parameters of the Standard Model and have to be determined experimentally. Over the past decade, the vast samples of B mesons recorded at the B factories at LEP at Cornell University, KEK at Tsukuba, and SLAC at Stanford University have allowed for detailed studies of semileptonic B decays. These decays proceed via first-order weak interactions; thus, they are expected to be free of non-Standard Model contributions and therefore are well suited for the extraction of the quark-mixing parameters. Differential decay rates are combined with theoretical calculations of hadronization effects, leading to a substantially improved knowledge of |V{sub cb}| and |V{sub ub}|. The results are used to constrain the parameters of the CKM matrix and to test the Standard Model predictions for CP-violating effects.
- Research Organization:
- SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC02-76SF00515
- OSTI ID:
- 1032743
- Report Number(s):
- SLAC-REPRINT-2012-001; TRN: US1200539
- Journal Information:
- Annual Review of Nuclear and Particle Science, Vol. 61
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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