Measurement of the Partial Branching Fraction for Inclusive Charmless Semileptonic B Decays and Extraction of $|V_{ub}|$

Abstract

Charmless semileptonic decays, ${\bar{B}} \to X_u \ell \bar{\nu}$, are studied in a sample of 232 million $B\bar{B}$ decays recorded with the BaBar detector, in events where the decay of the second $B$ meson is fully reconstructed. Inclusive charmless decays are selected in kinematic regions where the dominant background from semileptonic B decays to charm is reduced by requirements on the hadronic mass $M_X$ and the momentum transfer $q^2$. The partial branching fraction for ${\bar{B}} \to X_u \ell \bar{\nu}$ decays for $M_X<1.7$ GeV/c^2 and $q^2>8$ Gev^2/c^4 is measured to be $\Delta{\cal{B}}({\bar{B}} \to X_u \ell \bar{\nu}) = (0.87 \pm 0.09_{\rm stat}\pm 0.09_{\rm sys}\pm 0.01_{\rm th})\times 10^{-3}$. The CKM matrix element $|V_{ub}|$ is determined by using theoretical calculations of phase space acceptances. Theoretical uncertainties in this extrapolation are reduced by using the inclusive $b \to s \gamma$ photon spectrum and moments of the $b \to c \ell \bar{\nu}$ lepton energy and hadronic invariant mass.