The b-quark and Symmetries of the Strong Interaction

Abstract

Applications of HQET and NRQCD to fragmentation are briefly reviewed. The special role of the b-quark in applications of heavy quark symmetry is discussed. Predictions of HQET for semileptonic B decays to excited charmed mesons are considered.

Comments: 8 pages, Talk presented at the Twenty Beautiful Years of Bottom Physics Symposium, Chicago, IL, 1997. Discussion of fragmentation parameters is improved