A largely model-independent measurement of the inclusive electron momentum spectrum and branching fraction for semileptonic decays of B mesons is presented based on data recorded at the ${\rm Y}\mathrm{}\left(4S\right)\mathrm{}$ resonance with the BABAR detector. Backgrounds from secondary charm decays are separated from prompt B decays using charge and angular correlations between the electron from one B meson and a high momentum electron tag from the second B meson. The resulting branching fraction is $\mathcal{B}\left(\overrightarrow{B}\mathrm{Xe}\nu \right)=[10.87\pm 0.18(\mathrm{stat})\pm 0.30(\mathrm{syst}\left)\right]\%.\mathrm{}$ Based on this measurement we determine the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa (CKM) matrix element $|V_{\mathrm{cb}}|.$

• Received 14 August 2002

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.67.031101