Session U2: Flavor Physics

Flavor physics in the LHC era

I will provide a comprehensive review of indirect searches for New Physics. I will discuss current theoretical challenges and successes in understanding decays and mixing parameters of beauty and charmed mesons. I will argue that allowed parameter space of many New Physics scenarios can be constrained from studies of charm or beauty transitions. This has immediate implications for the direct searches of physics beyond the Standard Model at the LHC and, in particular, for the solution of the flavor problem.   

Heavy Flavor Production and Polarization Results at the LHC

Measurements of heavy-quark production at the LHC permit tests of perturbative quantum chromodynamics at high collision energies. These cross section measurements are also important for electroweak, Higgs and exotic physics studies where heavy-quark production is a significant background process. In this talk, I will discuss heavy flavor production and polarization studies using the ATLAS, CMS and LHCb experiments at the LHC. Recent results from 7-TeV, 8-TeV and 13-TeV pp collisions will be presented.   

Quark Flavor Physics: Experimental Status and Prospects

Processes involving quark flavor changes are sensitive probes of additional short-range interactions. Such processes can also be used to search for low-mass hidden-sector bosons. I will summarize the current state of the field, focusing on the stringent model-independent constraints placed on physics at high mass scales. A few intriguing anomalies will also be highlighted.