Heavy quark lifetimes, mixing, and CP violation

This paper has examined four topics of recent research in heavy quark decays. In each case, interesting new results are available this year, and these point the way to even better results in the near future. First of all, new measurements of the D(s) lifetime provide useful data for improving our understanding in the mechanisms of charm decay. In the near future, precision measurements of charm baryon lifetimes from FNAL fixed target experiments FOCUS and SELEX should help complete that understanding. Secondly, results from a new CLEO search for charm mixing are just released, which improve the sensitivity to charm mixing by about an order of magnitude. In the next few years, efforts at FOCUS and at the B factories will further the search. Thirdly, attempts to measure the B(s) mixing frequency have improved this year, resulting in a higher limit on ΔM(s). Efforts at LEP and SLD will continue for at least another year, with the hope of seeing the oscillation. If it is not found in the next year, Run II data from the Tevatron experiments is expected to extend the reach in ΔM(s) by more than a factor of two. In time, this will either confirm the estimates of V(td), or it will point to an interesting conflict within the Standard Model. Finally, efforts have begun to measure CP asymmetries in the B system. New results at CDF and ALEPH suggest that sin 2β is within the expected range and should be an easy target for B factory measurements. On the other hand, measurements of α via CP asymmetries of B⁰→π⁺π^- may prove to be more difficult in light of the new CLEO measurements of the B⁰→Kπ and B⁰→ππ branching fractions, which suggest that penguin contributions play an important role in these decay modes.