Interplay between LHC and flavor physics

The discovery of the Higgs boson and subsequent measurements of its properties at the LHC have spectacularly confirmed key standard model (SM) predictions concerning electroweak symmetry breaking. At the same time, flavor physics, also intimately tied to Higgs interactions, remains among the least understood sectors of the SM. On the one hand, the peculiar pattern of quark and lepton masses, and their mixing angles, may be the clue to some new dynamics beyond SM. Experimental studies of the Higgs boson are finally starting to probe this aspect of flavor physics directly. On the other hand, the generally excellent agreement between SM predictions and existing experimental measurements of the multitude of flavor physics observables at lower energies represents a serious challenge to SM extensions predicting new particles in direct reach of the LHC. Fortunately, several recent experimental hints of possible deviations from SM predictions in rare semileptonic B meson decays do have interesting implications for direct searches performed at high energies.