Type: Article
Publication Date: 2006-06-02
Citations: 17
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevd.73.111102
We present the results of a search for the production of an excited state of the muon, ${\ensuremath{\mu}}^{*}$, in proton antiproton collisions at $\sqrt{s}=1.96\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{TeV}$. The data have been collected with the D0 experiment at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider and correspond to an integrated luminosity of approximately $380\text{ }\text{ }{\mathrm{pb}}^{\ensuremath{-}1}$. We search for ${\ensuremath{\mu}}^{*}$ in the process $p\overline{p}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{\ensuremath{\mu}}^{*}\ensuremath{\mu}$, with the ${\ensuremath{\mu}}^{*}$ subsequently decaying to a muon plus photon. No excess above the standard model expectation is observed in data. Interpreting our data in the context of a model that describes ${\ensuremath{\mu}}^{*}$ production by four-fermion contact interactions and ${\ensuremath{\mu}}^{*}$ decay via electroweak processes, we set a 95% confidence level production cross section upper limit ranging from 0.057 to 0.112 pb, depending on the mass of the excited muon. Choosing the scale for contact interactions to be $\ensuremath{\Lambda}=1\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{TeV}$, excited muon masses below 618 GeV are excluded.