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Abstract

We discuss the contribution of associated production of charmed pairs $\overline{c}c$ to multilepton events in $\ensuremath{\nu}$ reactions, with emphasis on like-sign dimuons and trimuons. Both absolute rates and constraints from distributions are considered. We give one treatment which is purely phenomenological, obtaining the maximum amount of $\overline{c}c$ production which can be consistent with existing data on distributions, and giving relative amounts for different multilepton states. We also attempt a theoretical analysis which gives an estimate for the magnitude of $\overline{c}c$ production in $\ensuremath{\nu}$ reactions starting from photoproduction of $\ensuremath{\psi}$; this leads to a rate significantly larger than that due to perturbative quantum-chromodynamics estimates made so far. We give results for both the 350-GeV wide-band neutrino beam at CERN and the 400-GeV quadrupole triplet neutrino beam at Fermilab, including experimental cuts. Our results for trimuons and dimuons arising from $\overline{c}c$ decays are that $\frac{\ensuremath{\sigma}({\ensuremath{\mu}}^{\ensuremath{-}}{\ensuremath{\mu}}^{\ensuremath{-}}{\ensuremath{\mu}}^{+})}{\ensuremath{\sigma}({\ensuremath{\mu}}^{\ensuremath{-}})}\ensuremath{\lesssim}1\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}5}$ and $\frac{\ensuremath{\sigma}({\ensuremath{\mu}}^{\ensuremath{-}}{\ensuremath{\mu}}^{\ensuremath{-}})}{\ensuremath{\sigma}({\ensuremath{\mu}}^{\ensuremath{-}}{\ensuremath{\mu}}^{+})}\ensuremath{\lesssim}2\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}2}$. We do not find any need to search for anomalous sources of multimuon events.

Neutrino-induced multilepton events arising from the associated production of charmed particles

Abstract

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