Charm Mixing - Theory.pdf

a r X i v : 0 7 1 0 .0 1 5 1 v 1 [ h e p - p h ] 3 0 S e p 2 0 0 7 Proceedings of the CHARM 2007 Workshop, Ithaca, NY, August 5-8, 2007 1 Charm Mixing - Theory E. Golowich Physics Department, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003, USA We discuss Standard Model (SM) and New Physics (NP) descriptions of D0 mixing. The SM part of the discussion addresses both quark-level and hadron-level contributions. The NP part describes our recent works on the rate difference ?ΓD and the mass difference ?MD. In particular, we describe how the recent experimental determination of ?MD is found to place tightened restrictions on parameter spaces for 17 of 21 NP models considered in a recent paper by Hewett, Pakvasa, Petrov and myself. I. INTRODUCTION Given the forthcoming operation of the LHC, per- haps the dominant role of experimental flavor studies in particle physics will be supplanted by discoveries in the so-called new physics. Even if flavor physics faces an unsure future, all would acknowledge its remark- able recent progress via the observation of rare phe- nomena such as CP-violation in B-mesons or particle- antiparticle mixing for Bs and D 0 mesons. If new physics is indeed observed, the continued exploration of rare observables could well be an asset in decipher- ing exotic LHC events. My purpose in this talk is to describe two recent theoretical contributions to D0 mixing [1, 2].[22] Both Ref. [1] and Ref. [2] should be considered in the con- text of the recent HFAG values [3], xD ≡ ?MD ΓD = ( 8.4+3.2?3.4 ) · 10?3 yD ≡ ?ΓD 2ΓD = (6.9± 2.1) · 10?3 . (1) In light of the Physical Review Letters criteria of ’ob- servation’ ( 5σ) or ’evidence’ (3σ-to-5σ), we see that the above 2.4σ determination for xD amounts to a ’measurement’ ( 3σ). As such, we all await improv- ments in sensitivity for charm mixing. The observed signal is seen to occur at about the 1% level. Whether or not this is the magnitude expected for the SM signal is a topic I will discuss shortly.