Search for Possible Signatures of Bottom-Meson Production inp-Fe Interactions at 400 GeV/c

Evidence of bottom-quark-state production has been searched for in $p$-Fe interactions at 400 GeV/c by looking for multimuon final states. Muons in such final states could come from $B\to \psi \to 2\mu$ decay accompanied by a muonic decay of $\overline{B}$ (or $\overline{B}\to \overline{D}\to \mu$ chain) or from a combination of $B$ and $D$ muonic decays. With the assumption of a 10% branching ratio for $B\to \mu X$, a search for several specific decay modes yields an upper limit for the $B$ production cross section of ≲ 50 nb/nucleon.