Short distance D-Dbar mixing

Abstract

We review the status of Standard Model predictions for lifetimes and mixing rates of charmed mesons. It is shown that the short distance approach is able to reproduce tau(D^+)/tau(D^0) at leading order in the 1/m_c expansion. SU(3) violating effects from interactions with the soft hadronic background are identified as the dominant contribution to the D-Dbar mixing rate. We discuss the contribution from operators of dimension nine, which is able to enhance the neutral charm width splitting by a factor of order ten and comment on possible CP violation in mixing.