Flavor-changing neutral current effects and CP violation in the minimal 3-3-1 model

We investigate in detail the flavor structure of the minimal 3-3-1 model and its implications for several flavor-changing neutral current (FCNC) processes. In this model, where the weak SU(2)(L) gauge group of the Standard Model is extended to a SU(3)(L), the by far dominant new contributions come from an additional neutral Z(') gauge boson, that can transmit FCNCs at tree-level. At the same time, electroweak precision observables receive new contributions only at the loop level and do not constrain the model very strongly. In our analysis, we take into account new CP-violating effects that have been neglected in earlier analyses, and account for a general flavor structure without reference to a certain parametrization of the new mixing-matrix. We begin by studying the bounds obtained from quantities such as Delta M-K, epsilon(K), Delta M-d/s as well as sin2 beta vertical bar(J/psi KS), and go on to explore the implications for several clean rare decay channels, namely, the decays K+->pi(+)nu nu, K-L ->pi(0)nu nu, B-d/s ->mu(+)mu(-) and K-L ->pi(0)l(+)l(-). We find sizeable effects in all these decays, but the most interesting quantity turns out to be the B-s(0)-B-s(0) mixing phase beta(s), as measured in the mixing induced CP asymmetry of B-s(0)-> J/psi phi, which can be large. In general, we find effects in purely hadronic channels to be larger than in (semi-)leptonic ones, due to a suppression of the Z(')-lepton couplings.