Flavour Physics and CP Violation

We explain the many reasons for the interest in flavor physics. We describe flavor physics and the related CP violation within the Standard Model, and explain how the B-factories proved that the Kobayashi-Maskawa mechanism dominates the CP violation that is observed in meson decays. We explain the implications of flavor physics for new physics, with emphasis on the "new physics flavor puzzle", and present the idea of minimal flavor violation as a possible solution. We explain why the values flavor parameters of the Standard Model are puzzling, present the Froggatt-Nielsen mechanism as a possible solution, and describe how measurements of neutrino parameters are interpreted in the context of this puzzle. We show that the recently discovered Higgslike boson may provide new opportunities for making progress on the various flavor puzzles.Comment: 34 pages, contribution to the 2013 CERN - Latin-American School of High-Energy Physics, Arequipa, Peru, 6-19 Mar 2013. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1010.2666, arXiv:0708.187

Flavour physics and CP violation

This is a written version of a series of lectures aimed at graduate students in particle theory/string theory/particle experiment familiar with the basics of the Standard Model. We explain the many reasons for the interest in flavour physics. We describe flavour physics and the related CP violation within the Standard Model, and explain how the B-factories proved that the Kobayashi-Maskawa mechanism dominates the CP violation that is observed in meson decays. We explain the implications of flavour physics for new physics. We emphasize the "new physics flavour puzzle". As an explicit example, we explain how the recent measurements of D0-D0 mixing constrain the supersymmetric flavour structure. We explain how the ATLAS and CMS experiments can solve the new physics flavour puzzle and perhaps shed light on the standard model flavour puzzle. Finally, we describe various interpretations of the neutrino flavour data and their impact on flavour models.Comment: 36 pages, Lectures given at the 5th CERN-Latin-American School of High-Energy Physics, Recinto Quirama, Colombia, 15 - 28 Mar 200

Combined flavor symmetry violation and lepton number violation in neutrino physics

Heavy singlet neutrinos admit Majorana masses which are not possible for the Standard Model particles. This suggest new possibilities for generating the masses and mixing angles of light neutrinos. We present a model of neutrino physics which combines the source of lepton number violation with the flavor symmetry responsible for the hierarchy in the charged lepton and quark sector. This is accomplished by giving the scalar field effecting the lepton number violation a nonzero charge under the horizontal flavor symmetry. We find an economical model which is consistent with the measured values of the atmospheric and solar neutrino mass-squares and mixing angles.Comment: 6 pages, no figures (published version