Flavour Physics and Effective Field Theory

16 Lectures Dr. T. Feldmann

An important idea that is implicit in all descriptions of physical phenomena is that of an effective theory. The basic premise of effective theories is that dynamics at low energies (or large distances) does not depend on the details of the dynamics at high energies (or short distances). As a result, low energy physics can be described using an effective Lagrangian that contains only a few degrees of freedom, ignoring additional degrees of freedom present at higher energies. One of the main purposes of these lectures is to make these qualitative statements quantitative. The course first discusses "the" example of an effective field theory, Fermi's theory of weak interactions, including some aspects of renormalization. I will then turn to effective theories that describe QCD in the low-energy limit and in the limit of infinitely heavy quarks, respectively, and spend particular attention on the phenomenological relevance and also the limitations of these theories.

Outline of course

Flavour violation in the SM, the CKM matrix. Theory tool: effective Lagrangians. Deter- mination of CKM matrix elements: tree-level decays. Generic description of New Physics contributions. Loop processes: B mixing and b → s gamma. CP violation. Nonleptonic decays: B → pi pi. Overview of experimental B physics programme and prospects. Aspects of flavour violation in charm and Kaon physics.

Books for the Course

A.J. Buras, Weak Hamiltonian, CP violation and rare decays, hep-ph/9806471.

G.C. Branco, L.Lavoura and J.P. Silva, CP violation, Oxford University Press 1999

A. Hocker and Z. Ligeti, CP violation and the CKM matrix, Ann. Rev. Nucl. Part. Sci. 56 (2006) 501-567, arXiv:hep-ph/0605217

C. Davies, S.M. Playfer, P. Osborne (eds.), Heavy Flavour Physics,IoP publications, 2002.