QUARK MIXING AND CP VIOLATION — THE CKM MATRIX

Abstract

I summarize the theoretical progress in the determination of the CKM elements since Lepton-Photon 2003 and present the status of the elements and parameters of the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa (CKM) matrix. One finds |Vus| = 0.2227 ± 0.0017 from K and τ decays and |Vcb| = (41.6 ± 0.5) · 10-3 from inclusive semileptonic B decays. The unitarity triangle can now be determined from tree-level quantities alone and the result agrees well with the global fit including flavour-changing neutral current (FCNC) processes, which are sensitive to new physics. From the global fit one finds the three CKM angles θ12 = 12.9° ± 0.1°, θ23 = 2.38° ± 0.03° and θ13 = 0.223° ± 0.007° in the standard PDG convention. The CP phase equals [Formula: see text] at 1σ CL and [Formula: see text] at 2σ CL. A major progress are first results from fully unquenched lattice QCD computations for the hadronic quantities entering the UT fit. I further present the calculation of three-loop QCD corrections to the charm contribution in [Formula: see text] decays, which removes the last relevant theoretical uncertainty from the [Formula: see text] system. Finally I discuss mixing-induced CP asymmetries in [Formula: see text] penguin decays, whose naive average is below its Standard Model value by 3σ.