Observation of Muon Pairs in High-Energy Hadron Collisions

Abstract

Muon pairs with effective masses between 1 GeV/${\mathit{c}}^2$ and 6.5 GeV/${\mathit{c}}^2$ have been observed in the collisions of 30-GeV protons with a uranium target. The production cross section was seen to vary smoothly with mass exhibiting no resonant structure. Data were taken at incident proton energies of 22, 25, 28.5, and 29.5 GeV. Within the experimental aperture the total cross section increased with energy by a factor of 5. The experimental results are compared with the predictions of several theoretical models. Limits are presented for the contributions to the signal from both massive muon-pair resonances and antiproton-proton annihilation. Implications are presented for higher-energy accelerators, using current ideas involving scaling.