NLO QCD Corrections to Inclusive $b \rightarrow c \ell \bar{\nu}$ Decay Spectra up to $1/m_Q^3$

Abstract

We present analytical results for higher order corrections to the decay spectra of inclusive semileptonic heavy hadron weak decays using the heavy quark expansion (HQE). We compute analytically the spectrum of the leptonic invariant mass for $B \rightarrow X_c \ell \bar{\nu}$ up to and including terms of order $1/m_Q^3$ within the HQE at next-to-leading order (NLO) in $\alpha_s$. The full dependence of the differential rate on the mass of the final-state quark is taken into account. We discuss the implications of our results for the precision determination of the CKM matrix element $|V_{cb}|$.