$B$-mixing in and beyond the Standard model

Alexander Lenz

Published 2014-09-24Version 1

We review the status of mixing of neutral $B$-mesons, including a discussion of the current precision of Standard Model (SM) predictions as well as the space that is left for effects of new physics. In that respect we present several observables, which are particularly sensitive to the remaining new physics (NP) parameter space. $B$-mixing can also be used to test the fundaments of quantum mechanics, here we suggest a new measurement of the ratio of like-sign dilepton events to opposite-sign dilepton events. Finally we summarise briefly the status of lifetimes of heavy hadrons. The corresponding theory predictions rely on the same tool - the Heavy Quark Expansion (HQE) - as some of the mixing quantities. New experimental data has recently proven the validity of the HQE to a high accuracy. However, the theoretical precision of lifetime predictions is strongly limited by a lack of non-perturbative evaluations of matrix elements of dimension-six operators.