On the Search for Muonic Photons in Neutrino Experiments

Conserved muonic number may turn out to be a conserved muonic charge, coupled to muonic photons, γμ. Muons and muonic neutrinos would emit γμ’s, which might be discovered by analysing the data from the past and future high energy neutrino experiments (like CHARM II, CCFR, CHORUS, NOMAD, etc.). There are two sources of γμ’s in these experiments: 1) internal bremsstrahlung in pion and kaon decays into μ and νμ, which provide neutrino beams; 2) external bremsstrahlung of muons in the shielding of the neutrino beam. In both cases the γμ’s would pass freely through the shielding and produce narrow muonic pairs in the neutrino detectors. These pairs could be distinguished from the trident events (νμ + Z → νμ + μ + μ + Z) by their kinematical properties: small pt of the muon pair, small invariant mass, etc. All the above processes are quantitatively analysed in this paper.