Characteristics of trimuon events observed in high-energy neutrino interactions

The properties of 76 neutrino-initiated μ^?μ^?μ⁺ events observed in the CDHS detector in the 350 GeV and 400 GeV wide-band beams at CERN are discussed. For neutrino energies 30 GeV and muon momenta ?4.5 GeV, the average trimuon rate is (3.0 ± 0.4) × 10^?5 of the single-muon event rate. The experimental distributions are compared with predictions from various models. The data cannot be understood in terms of either heavy-lepton or heavy-quark cascades; no evidence is found for such processes and upper limits for the two possibilities are established. The data can be understood in terms of the normal charged-current process with the additional production of a muon pair by both hadronic and electromagnetic processes.