Short Distance Analysis of D^0-anti-D^0 Mixing

We study the Standard Model short-distance prediction for the mass and lifetime differences between the two neutral D meson mass eigenstates. We find that, despite \alpha_s/4\pi suppression, next-to-leading order (NLO) short-distance QCD corrections exceed the corresponding leading order (LO) amplitudes. For the lifetime difference, this stems from the lifting of helicity suppression of a light-quark intermediate state. We find y_D is given by y_NLO to a reasonable approximation but x_D is greatly affected by destructive interference between x_LO and x_NLO. The net effect is to render y_D ~ x_D ~ 6 x 10^{-7}. Our NLO short-distance results, still smaller than most long-distance estimates, depend on the same two nonperturbative matrix elements of four-quark operators as in leading order.