Nuclear Interaction of Very High Energy Muons at Large Momentum Transfer

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Abstract
A new model is presented for the theoretical approach to the nuclear interaction of very high energy muons with large energy transfers of a few hundreds GeV observed by the Osaka City University group. The model is based on the assumption that the virtual photon with large virtuality, which is accompanied by the muon, dissociates into a pair of heavy particles and one of the particles interacts with the target nucleon. In contrast with the Weizsäcker and Williams theory, the model is considered to be applicable to events with large energy transfer. Nevertheless, it is shown that the present theory is not consistent with the abnormally large cross section observed by the Osaka City University group. This might mean that the abnormal event would conflict with such a fundamental thing of the present-day physics as the validity of the perturbation theory for electromagnetic interaction or of the constancy of the γN total cross section at the high energy limit.

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