Kaon decays and the flavour problem

Abstract

After a brief introduction to the so-called flavour problem, we discuss the role of rare K decays in probing the mechanism of quark-flavour mixing. Particular attention is devoted to the formulation of the Minimal Flavour Violation hypothesis, as a general and natural solution to the flavour problem, and to the fundamental role of K -> pi nu nu-bar decays in testing this scenario.

Comments: 10 pages, 6 figures, contribution to TH 2002 (Paris, July 2002)