Measurement of the inclusive electron spectrum in charmless semileptonic B decays near the kinematic endpoint and determination of |Vub|

Abstract

We study the inclusive electron spectrum of B->X_u e nu decays near the kinematic limit for B->X_c e nu transitions using a sample of 88 million Upsilon(4S) decays recorded by the BABAR detector at the PEP II e+e- storage rings. For the electron momentum interval of 2.0 - 2.6 GeV/c the partial branching fraction is measured to be DeltaB(B->X_u e nu) = (0.480 +/- 0.029_{stat} +/- 0.053_{syst})x10^{-3}. Combining this result on with measurements of the inclusive photon spectrum in B->X_s gamma transition we find |V_ub|=(3.94 +/- 0.25_{exp} +/- 0.37_{f_u} +/- 0.19_{theory})x10^{-3}, where the first error represents the combined statistical and systematic experimental uncertainty of the partial branching fraction measurement, the second refers to the uncertainty of the determination of the fraction f_u of the inclusive electron spectrum that falls within our cuts, and the third error is due to theoretical uncertainties in the QCD corrections, plus the uncertainty in the b-quark mass. All results are preliminary.