Limit on Bottom Hadron Production by 209-GeV Muons

Analysis of 36 952 dimuon final states produced by 209-GeV muons in a magnetized-iron calorimeter has been used to set the 90%-confidence level limit {sigma}({mu}N{yields}b{bar b}X)B(b{bar b}{yields}{mu}X)<2.9x10{sup -36} cm{sup 2} for the production of bottom hadrons. Using B=0.17, the bound on the cross section for 160-GeV photons extrapolated to Q{sup 2}=0 is {sigma}({gamma}N{yields}b{bar b}X)<4.3 nb, These limits conflict with several model calculations based on vector-meson dominance.