Prospects for B-Decay Studies at the LHC

Abstract

In this decade, there are huge efforts to explore B-meson decays, which offer interesting probes to test the quark-flavour structure of the Standard Model and to search for signals of new physics. Exciting new perspectives for these studies will soon arise at the LHC, where decays of $B^0_s$ mesons will be a key target of the B-physics programme. We will discuss theoretical aspects of various benchmark channels and address the question of how much space for new-physics effects in their observables is left by the recent experimental results from the B factories and the Tevatron.

18 pages, 4 figures, invited talk at the 3rd High-Energy Physics Conference in Madagascar (HEP-MAD 07), 10-15 September 2007, Antananarivo, Madagascar, to appear in the proceedings