The Belle II experiment: status and Physics prospects

The Belle II experiment is a substantial upgrade of the Belle detector and will operate at the SuperKEKB energy-asymmetric $e^+e^-$ collider. The detector construction has recently been completed and the accelerator is in its second phase of commissioning, with first collisions expected around the time of this conference. The design luminosity is $8 \times 10^{35}$ cm$^{-2}$s$^{-1}$ and the Belle II experiment aims to record 50 ab$^{-1}$ of data, a factor of 50 more than the Belle experiment. This large data set will be accumulated with low backgrounds and high trigger efficiencies in a clean $e^+e^－$ environment; this will allow to probe New Physics scales that are well beyond the reach of direct production at the LHC and will complement other searches that are currently ongoing or planned. This talk will review the present status of the experiment, and present an overview of the golden channels, their physics motivations, and the expected sensitivity.