Strong phases and D0-anti-D0 mixing parameters

Abstract

We argue that there could be large, SU(3) violating resonance contributions to D -> K pi decays which would affect the extraction of the D0-anti-D0 mixing parameters from experiment. Such contributions can induce a large strong phase in the interference between the doubly Cabibbo suppressed and the mixing induced Cabibbo favored contributions to the D0 -> K^+ pi^- and anti-D0 -> K^- pi^+ decays. Consequently, the interpretation of a large, CP conserving interference term can involve a large mass difference Delta M rather than a large width difference Delta Gamma.

Comments: 9 pages, 1 figure, RevTeX; discussion clarified, qualitative and quantitative conclusions unchanged, version to appear in JHEP