Phenomenological aspects of CP violation

Abstract

We present a pedagogical review of the phenomenology of CP violation, with emphasis on B decays. Main topics include the phenomenology of neutral meson systems, CP violation in the Standard Model of electroweak interactions, and B decays. We stress the importance of the reciprocal basis, sign conventions, rephasing invariance, general definitions of the CP transformation and the spurious phases they bring about, CP violation as originating from the clash of two contributions, the rho-eta plane, the four phases of a generalized CKM matrix, and the impact of discrete ambiguities. Specific B decays are included in order to illustrate some general techniques used in extracting information from B physics experiments. We include a series of simple exercises. The style is informal.