Charm physics

TL;DR

Charm physics remains a vibrant field that tests the Standard Model and probes for new physics through the study of charm quark properties, experimental challenges, and fundamental observables like lifetimes, mixing, CP violation, and rare decays.

Contribution

This chapter provides a comprehensive pedagogical overview of charm quark physics, highlighting current theoretical and experimental challenges and methods.

Findings

Summary of charm sector features within the Standard Model

Discussion of experimental and theoretical challenges in charm studies

Overview of key observables like lifetimes, mixing, CP violation, and rare decays

Abstract

50 years after the discovery of the first charmed particle, charm physics continues to be an extremely lively field of research and a cornerstone in particle physics. The study of charm, with its unique properties, is characterised by many challenging but also exciting peculiarities, making it an ideal testing ground for Standard Model (SM) predictions and a very sensitive probe of new physics. This chapter is intended to provide a pedagogical introduction to the physics of the charm quark and to its current theoretical and experimental status. Specifically, it discusses the main features of the charm sector of the SM, the theoretical and experimental challenges that arise when dealing with the charm quark, and the methods used to study it. An overview, both from a theoretical and experimental perspective, of fundamental observables such as lifetimes of charm hadrons, $D^0$-meson mixing, charm charge-parity violation (CPV) and rare charm decays is also presented.