The importance of this research area is increasing, as evidenced by the approval of the luminosity upgrade for CESR and the asymmetric B factories at SLAC and KEK, and the possibility of experiments at hadron colliders.

The key experimental observations made thus far, measurement of the lifetimes of the different B species, B⁰–B⁰ mixing, the discovery of "Penguin" mediated decays, and the extraction of the CKM matrix elements Vub and Vcb from semileptonic decays, as well as more mundane results, are described in great detail by the experimentalists who have been closely involved with making the measurements. Theoretical progress in understanding b-quark decays using HQET and lattice gauge techniques are described by theorists who have developed and used these techniques.

Synthesizing the experimental and theoretical information, several articles discuss the implications for the "Standard Model" and how further tests can be done using measurements of CP violation in the B system.

Contents:

• B Decays — Introduction and Overview (A Ali)
• Experimental Facilities for b-Quark Physics (M Artuso)
• Non-Leptonic Decays of Beauty Hadrons — From Phenomenology to Theory (I I Bigi et al.)
• A Review of Hadronic and Rare B Decays (T Browder et al.)
• Heavy Quark Symmetry (N Isgur & M B Wise)
• Semileptonic B Decays (S Stone)
• Lifetimes (W B Atwood & J A Jaros)
• Recent Measurements of the Lifetimes of b Hadrons (V A Sharma & F V Weber)
• B[`B] Mixing (H Schröder)
• The Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa Matrix (J L Rosner)
• Theory of CP Violation in B Decays (Y Nir & H R Quinn)
• CP Violation with Additional B Decays (I Dunietz)
• Theory of Penguins in B Decays (N G Desphande)
• B-Decays from Lattice QCD (C T Sachrajda)
• Probing New Physics in FCNC B Decays and Oscillations (S Bertolini et al.)
• The Chirality of b Quark Couplings (M Gronau)