The CKM Parameters

Understand

The Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix is a key element to describe flavour dynamics in the Standard Model.

• With only four parameters, this matrix is able to describe a large range of phenomena in the quark sector, such as CP violation and rare decays.
• It can thus be constrained by many different processes, which have to be measured experimentally with a high accuracy and computed with a good theoretical control.
• With the advent of the B factories and the LHCb experiment taking data, the precision has significantly improved recently.