Future of Heavy-Flavour Physics

Abstract

The prospects for the coming Golden Age of heavy-flavour physics are discussed from the perspective of one who hopes it may provide a window onto physics beyond the Standard Model. Precise QCD calculations are necessary for accurate determinations of CKM parameters, and may be provided by the lattice and new perturbative techniques. The future of CKMology in the wake of the relatively small branching ratio for B_d -> pi pi are discussed, including alternative strategies for measuring alpha and gamma. The opportunities for measurements of rare B decays are reviewed briefly, as are possible K-decay windows on physics beyond the Standard Model, in the wake of the establishment of a relatively large value for epsilon'/epsilon. Finally, relations to other aspects of flavour physics are discussed, including the grand unification of quark and lepton masses in the context of neutrino-mass models motivated by the recent oscillation data from Super-Kamiokande and elsewhere.