With the completion of Run~I of the CERN Large Hadron Collider, particle
physics has entered a new era. The production of unprecedented numbers of
heavy-flavoured hadrons in high energy proton-proton collisions allows detailed
studies of flavour-changing processes. The increasingly precise measurements
allow to probe the Standard Model with a new level of accuracy. Rare b hadron
decays provide some of the most promising approaches for such tests, since
there are several observables which can be cleanly interpreted from a
theoretical viewpoint. In this article, the status and prospects in this field
are reviewed, with a focus on precision measurements and null tests.Comment: Invited review for Annual Reviews of Nuclear and Particle Physics. v2
as publishe
