Direct CP violation in charm and flavor mixing beyond the SM

We discuss the impact of physics beyond the Standard Model on direct CP violation in charm. On general grounds, models in which the primary source of flavor violation is linked to the breaking of chiral symmetry (left-right flavor mixing) are natural candidates to explain this effect, via enhanced chromomagnetic operators. In the case of super-symmetric models, we identify two motivated scenarios: disoriented A-terms and split families. Non-supersymmetric models with Z-mediated and scalar-mediated FCNC are also discussed.