OBSERVATION OF ANOMALOUS DIMUON EVENTS IN THE NUTEV DECAY DETECTOR

A search for the decay of long-lived neutral particles has been performed using an instrumented decay channel at the E815 (NuTeV) experiment at Fermilab. The data were examined for particles decaying into the muonic final states μμ, μe, and μπ. Three μμ events were observed over an expected background of 0.040±0.009 events; no events were observed in the other modes. No Standard Model process appears to be consistent with this observation.