Flavor Physics Year

Recall that there is already good evidence for non standard CKM physics around the electroweak scale. The few models that attack the non standard phase problem tend to correlate the appropriate $\sin 2 \beta$ parameter with the measured asymmetry, $a$. For example, a four generation model gives the ($B$ physics) result below.

For one phase of current interest, namely

$\beta \equiv \frac{V_{cb}^{*} V_{ub}}{V_{us}^{*} V_{cs}}$,

the naive triality value is $2 \beta = - 0.096$. If such new phases are the right way to view these anomalous asymmetries, we must understand the evolution of the phases from standard CKM values (small) to the new values. Triality arguments from M Theory at least have the advantage that the $(a,b,c)$ parameters are intimately related to physical scale, although this is not yet well understood.