Inconclusive Inclusive Nonleptonic $B$ Decays

Abstract

We reconsider the conflict between recent calculations of the semileptonic branching ratio of the $B$ meson and the experimentally measured rate. Such calculations depend crucially on the application of ``local duality'' in nonleptonic decays, and we discuss the relation of this assumption to the weaker assumptions required to compute the semileptonic decay rate. We suggest that the discrepancy between theory and experiment might be due to the channel with two charm quarks in the final state, either because of a small value for $m_c$ or because of a failure of local duality. We examine the experimental consequences of such solutions for the charm multiplicity in $B$ decays.

Comments: 22 pages, 3 uuencoded figures included, uses REVTeX, preprint nos. CALT-68-1933, FERMILAB-PUB-94-106-T, JHU-TIPAC-940005, NSF-ITP-94-43, UCSD/PTH 94-05 (revised version: one equation added for clarity, one reference added, all changes occur on page 16 or later)