Phenomenology of the 1/m(Q) expansion in inclusive B and D meson decays

We apply a recent theoretical analysis of hadronic observables in inclusive semileptonic heavy hadron decays to the phenomenology of B and D mesons. Correlated bounds on the nonperturbative parameters <(Lambda)over bar> and lambda(1) are derived by considering data from B decays and, independently, data from B decays. The two sets of bounds are found to be consistent with each other. The data from B decays then are used to extract a lower limit on the CKM matrix element \V-cb\. We address the issue of the convergence of the perturbative expansions used in the analysis, and compare our bounds on <(Lambda)over bar> and lambda(1) to lattice and QCD sum rule results. Finally, we argue that a comparison of the analyses of D and D-s decays provides evidence for the applicability of parton-hadron duality in the semileptonic decay of charmed hadrons.