The modern description of semileptonic meson form factors

Abstract

I describe recent advances in our understanding of the hadronic form factors governing semileptonic meson transitions. The resulting framework provides a systematic approach to the experimental data, as a means of extracting precision observables, testing nonperturbative field-theory methods, and probing a poorly understood limit of QCD.

Comments: 13 pages, 9 figures. Invited talk presented at Flavor Physics and CP Violation Conference, Vancouver, 2006; figure 9 updated with new experimental data, references added