Rephasing invariant formulation of CP violation in the Kobayashi-Maskawa framework.

Recently, there has been a good deal of interest in the notion of "maximal" CI' violation in the framework of the Kobayashi-Maskawa (KM) matrix. " Work on this question has been carried out using various parametrizations of the KM matrix. What is "maximal" in one parametrization need not be "maximal" in a parametrization which differs from the first by rephasing the quark fields. Further, the notion of "maximal" CP violation is not uniquely defined. It seems clear that we need a reparametrization(or rephasing-) invariant formulation of CP violation in the KM framework to properly assess the notion of "maximal" CI' violation. Surprisingly, such a formulation does not appear in the literature. My purpose in this Brief Report is to give such a formulation. The KM matrix appears in the Lagrangian of the standard model in the terms