The book is intended as a compact and complete review of the latest status and developments in the field of the physics of the beauty quark. Theoretical as well as experimental aspects are presented, making the book a useful compendium for the scientist working in Beauty physics as well as for the graduate student.
It covers the production and the decays of beauty quarks, spectroscopy of beauty hadrons, mixing and CP violation in the neutral Beauty systems. Experimental data are interpreted in the framework of the Standard Model, mainly fixing its fundamental parameters and testing the CKM sector of this model. Future prospects from the theoretical and experimental point of view are addressed.