Improving Extractions of |Vcb| and the b Quark Mass from Semileptonic Inclusive B Decay

Abstract

Recent advances in improving extractions of |Vcb| and m_b from spectra of semileptonic inclusive B decay are reported. Results of a general moment analysis of the lepton energy spectrum and the hadronic invariant mass spectrum are summarized. The calculation of the general O(\alpha_s) structure functions for semileptonic B decay is reported, which has allowed the calculation of the O(\alpha_s Lambda_{QCD} /m_b) terms for the hadronic invariant mass moments to be carried out. Recent theoretical advances and improvements in experimental data has allowed extractions of the CKM element |Vcb| to improve to the 2% level.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures. Talk given at MRST2004, May 12-14, Concordia, Montrea