Charm Changing Neutral Currents and Supersymmetry

Abstract

Flavor changing neutral currents (FCNCs) in the charm system are highly suppressed in the standard model (SM). The theoretical strategies used to suppress FCNCs induced by supersymmetry in the strange and beauty systems need not apply to the charm system. The charm changing neutral current decay D^0-> mu^+ mu^- is studied phenomenologically in the framework of supersymmetric extensions of the standard model. It is found that the decay branching ratio can be enhanced to about 10^{-10}, by having heavy non-degenerate supersymmetric strange or bottom quarks, with negligible effect on the strange and beauty FCNC processes. The D^0 mixing rate also receives enhancement in these models, but is generally below the present experimental limit. The prospects for measuring D^0-> mu^+ mu^- to 10^{-10} levels, a definitive signature of new physics beyond the SM, in the near future are discussed.