The experimental prospects for precise measurements of the leptonic decays B(u) -> tau nu/mu nu, B(s) -> mu(+)mu(-), D -> mu nu and D(s) -> mu nu/tau nu are very promising. Double ratios involving four of these decays can be defined in which the dependence on the values of the decay constants is essentially eliminated, thus enabling complementary measurements of the CKM matrix element V(ub) with a small theoretical error. We quantify the experimental error in a possible future measurement of vertical bar V(ub)vertical bar using this approach, and show that it is competitive with the anticipated precision from the conventional approaches. Moreover, it is shown that such double ratios can be more effective than the individual leptonic decays as a probe of the parameter space of supersymmetric models. We emphasize that the double ratios have the advantage of using vertical bar V(ub)vertical bar as an input parameter (for which there is experimental information), while the individual decays have an uncertainty from the decay constants (e. g. f(Bs)), and hence a reliance on theoretical techniques such as lattice QCD.
