We present measurements of branching fractions and CP-violating asymmetries for neutral B meson decays to two-body final states of charged pions and kaons. The results are obtained from a data sample of about 88 million[Upsilon](4S)[yields] B[bar B] decays collected between 1999 and 2002 with the BABAR detector at the PEP-II asymmetric-energy B Factory at SLAC. From a time-independent fit we measure the charge-averaged branching fractions[Beta](B[sup 0][yields][pi][sup+][pi][sup -])= (4.7[+-] 0.6[+-] 0.2) x 10[sup -6] and[Beta](B[sup 0][yields] K[sup+][pi][sup -])= (17.9[+-] 0.9[+-] 0.7) x 10[sup -6], where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second is systematic; the 90% confidence level upper limit[Beta](B[sup 0][yields] K[sup+]K[sup -])

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This book provides an update on our understanding of strong interaction, with theoretical and experimental highlights included. It is divided into five sections. The first section is devoted to the investigations into and the latest results on the mechanism of quark confinement. The second and third sections focus respectively on light and heavy quarks (effective field theories, SchwingerOCoDyson approach and lattice QCD results). The fourth section deals with the deconfinement mechanism and quarkOCogluon plasma formation signals. The last section presents highlights of experiments, new physics beyond QCD, and nonperturbative approaches in other theories (strings and SUSY) that may be useful in QCD."

CP violation is a well-established phenomenon in particle physics, but until 2001 it was only observed in kaons. In the last decade, several matter-antimatter asymmetries have been observed in neutral B mesons in line with the expectations of the Standard Model of the weak interaction. Direct CP violation is also expected in the decay rates of charged B+ mesons versus that of B- mesons, though the greatest effects are present in a decay that occurs just twice in 10 million decays. Such rarity requires huge samples to study and this is exactly what the LHC, and its dedicated B-physics experiment LHCb provide. This thesis presents an analysis of the first two years of LHCb data. The author describes the first observation of the rare decay, B- → DK-, D → π-K+ and the first observation of direct CP violation in this B decay. The work constitutes essential information on the experiment’s measurement of a fundamental parameter of the theory and stands as a benchmark against which subsequent analyses of this type will be compared.