Theory overview of semileptonic $B$ decays

Abstract

I review the recent theoretical progress on the study of tree-level semileptonic $b\to c$ decays. After briefly reviewing the latest developments on the exclusive determinations of $|V_{cb}|$, I discuss the hints on lepton flavor universality violation in $B\to D^{(\ast )}\ell \bar{\nu }$ decays. Particular emphasis is given to the implications of these anomalies and to the possibilities to experimentally test the proposed New Physics explanations.

Comments: To be published in the proceedings of The International Conference on B-Physics at Frontier Machines - BEAUTY2018, La Biodola, Elba Island, Italy, 6-11 May, 2018