Overview of the LHCb experiment

LHCb is a hadron collider experiment in preparation at CERN, which plans to start taking data as soon as the LHC machine becomes operational. It is dedicated to the study of CP violation and rare decays in the B-meson systems. A general overview of LHCb is given, including the physics motivations, the design of the experiment, and the expected detector, trigger, and physics performance.