Neutrino-induced heavy-lepton pair production at high energies and multimuon events

Total cross sections for the process ${\nu }_{\mu }+{}_{}{}^{56}{}_{}{}^{}\mathrm{Fe}\to {\mu }^{-}+L^{+}+L^0+{}_{}{}^{56}{}_{}{}^{}\mathrm{Fe}$ have been calculated in conventional $V-A$ weak-interaction theory. For multi-GeV/${\mathit{c}}^2$ mass assignments for $L^{+}$, the cross section is ∼${10}^{-6\mathrm{}}$ of the observed rate of charged-current events production by neutrinos at Fermilab. However, for $m_{L^{+}}=m_{{\mu }^{+}}$, and $m_{L^0}\sim 1 \mathrm{to} 2$ GeV/${\mathit{c}}^2$, the cross section is ∼${10}^{-1\mathrm{}}$ of the reported trimuon rates. Allowing $L^0$ to decay into muons + anything, we find that the leptons in the final states may be very energetic.