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

We present a measurement of the inclusive electron spectrum in B → X_ueν decays near the kinematic limit for B → X_ceν transitions, using a sample of 88 × 10^6 BB pairs recorded by the BABAR detector at the Υ (4S resonance. Partial branching fraction measurements are performed in five overlapping intervals of the electron momentum; for the interval of 2.0 – 2.6 GeV/c we obtain ΔB (B → X_ueν) = (0.572 ± 0.041_(stat) ± 0.065_(syst)) × 10^(−3). Combining this result with shape function parameters extracted from BABAR measurements of moments of the inclusive photon spectrum in B → X_sγ decays and moments of the hadron-mass and lepton-energy spectra in B → X_clν decays we determine │Vub|= (4.44 ± 0.25 + 0.4_( exp−0.38SF) ± 0.22_(theory)) × 10^(−3). Here the first error represents the combined statistical and systematic experimental uncertainties of the partial branching fraction measurement, the second error refers to the uncertainty of the determination of the shape function parameters, and the third error is due to theoretical uncertainties in the QCD calculations.