Introduction to $B$ Physics

Abstract

A short introduction to some current topics in $B$ physics is presented in order to set the stage for some results to be announced at this Workshop. After briefly reviewing the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa (CKM) matrix and information on its parameters, the decays of neutral $B$ mesons to several CP eigenstates, and some $B \to \pi K$ decays, are discussed. It is shown that progress is being made on determination of all the angles of the unitarity triangle.Comment: 12 pages, LaTeX, 7 figures plus photo, invited talk presented at XXXVIII Rencontres de Moriond: Electroweak Interactions and Unified Theories, Les Arcs, France, March 15-22, 2003. To be published in the Proceedings. More typographic corrections; two figures improved furthe