Extracting |V_{ub}| from the inclusive charmless semileptonic branching ratio of b hadrons

Abstract

We calculate the inclusive charmless semileptonic decay width of the B meson using a QCD-based approach. This approach is able to account for both dynamic and kinematic effects of nonperturbative QCD. The charmless semileptonic decay width is found to be enhanced by long-distance strong interactions by +(7\pm 5)% with respect to the free quark decay width. Using the resulting theoretical value for the charmless semileptonic decay width, an extraction of $|V_{ub}|$ is made from the measured lifetime and inclusive charmless semileptonic branching ratio of b hadrons.

Comments: 9 pages, 3 ps figures, revised version to appear in PLB, minor changes in the numerical results