Charm physics: theoretical review

Charm physics plays a unique dual role in the modern investigations of flavor physics. Charm decay and production experiments provide valuable checks and supporting measurements for studies of CP-violation in measurements of CKM parameters in b-physics, as well as outstanding opportunities for searches for new physics. Historically, many methods of heavy quark physics have been first tested in charmed hadrons. The fact that a b-quark mainly decays into a charm quark makes charm physics an integral part of any b-physics program. In many cases, direct measurements of charm decay parameters directly affect the studies of fundamental electroweak physics in B decays [1]. This year brought several interesting developments in some seemingly well-understood sectors of charm physics, such as meson spectroscopy. Here I shall discuss theoretical implications of these and other results. The experimental status of charmed meson spectroscopy was discussed in R. Chistov’s talk [2]. Resent results in the measurements of charmed meson formfactors, lifetimes and D0−D0 mixing parameters were discussed by W. Johns [3] and G. Boca [4].