Meson-antimeson mixing

Meson-antimeson transitions are flavor-changing neutral current processes in which the strangeness, charm, or beauty quantum number changes by two units. In the Standard Model (SM) these transitions originate from box diagrams with two W bosons. They permit the preparation of time-dependent, oscillating quantum states which are superpositions of a meson and its antimeson. By studying their decays one gains information on both the meson-antimeson mixing amplitude and the decay amplitude involved and one can measure complex phases quantifying the violation of charge-parity (CP) violation. I present a comprehensive overview on the topic, starting with phenomenological presentations of $K$-$\bar K$, $B_d$-$\bar B_d$, $B_s$-$\bar B_s$, and $D$-$\bar D$ mixing. Highlights are the discovery of the violation of CP and other discrete symmetries, the predictions of the charm quark and its mass and a heavy top quark, and the confirmation of the Kobayashi-Maskawa mechanism of CP violation. Further sections cover the theoretical formalism needed to describe meson-antimeson mixing and to calculate observables in terms of the fundamental parameters of the SM. I discuss the unitarity triangle of the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix, which is used to visualize how various CP-violating and CP-conserving quantities combine to probe the SM. I describe the emergence of precision flavor physics and the role of reliable theory calculations to link $K$-$\bar K$ mixing to $B_d$-$\bar B_d$ mixing, which was essential to confirm the Kobayashi-Maskawa mechanism, and present the current status of theory predictions. Today, the focus of the field is on physics beyond the SM, because meson-antimeson mixing amplitudes are sensitive to virtual effects of heavy particles with masses which are several orders of magnitude above the reach of current particle colliders.