Present status of inclusive rare B decays

Most inclusive rare B decays are important modes of flavor physics due to the small hadronic uncertainties. In this article, the author gives a status report on such decays, highlighting recent developments and open problems. The focus is on the decay modes B-->X(s,d)gamma, B-->X(s)l(+)l(-), and B-->X(s)nu(nu) over bar and on their role as laboratories in the search for new physics. The experimental data already available from CLEO and the B factories BABAR and BELLE are collected and discussed. The article then reviews the next-to-leading-log (NLL) and next-to-next-to-leading log (NNLL) QCD calculations of the inclusive decay rates that were recently completed and discusses future prospects, especially the issue of the charm-mass-scheme ambiguity. The phenomenological impact of these decay modes, in particular, on the CKM phenomenology and on the indirect search for supersymmetry, is analyzed. Direct CP violation in inclusive rare B decays is briefly treated, as are the rare kaon decays K+-->pi(+)nu(nu) over bar and K-L-->pi(0)nu(nu) over bar, which offer complementary, theoretically clean information.