Heavy quark expansion in beauty: recent successes and problems

Abstract

The status of the QCD-based heavy quark expansion is briefly reviewed. A good agreement between properly applied theory and new precision data is observed. Critical remarks on certain recent claims from HQET are presented. Recent applications to the exclusive heavy flavor transitions are addressed. The `1/2 > 3/2' problem for the transitions into the charm P-wave states is discussed.

Comments: 13 pages, LaTeX, five figures. Invited talk at "Continuous Advances in QCD 2004, 13-16 May 2004, Minneapolis, MN USA; to appear in the Proceedings