Quark-flavour physics

Abstract

Precision measurements in the flavour system are a powerful tool for indirect searches for new physics phenomena. Historically, bottom- and charmflavour physics is performed in the clean environment of e+e− collider experiments. Exploiting the large bb and cc cross sections in pp collisions, the LHC experiments, however, impressively demonstrate their huge flavour-physics potential and have by nowsuperseded most of the results of previous experiments. In this sectionwe present some of the highlights of the flavour-physics programme of the LHC, give pedagogical introductions to the theoretical concepts, and interpret the experimental results.