Evidence against 18 GeV/c/sup 2/ heavy charged muons

The hypothesis that the mu -e events observed at SLAC result from the production and subsequent decay of pairs of orthodox heavy muons of mass 1.8 GeV/c/sup 2/ is difficult to reconcile with neutrino and antineutrino data. There is no indication of a threshold between CERN and Fermilab energies in the neutral to charged current ratio, and no peaking in the observed y distribution at low x for inclusive charged current events. Taken together, these observations provide evidence against heavy muons whatever their decay branching fractions. However, more data is needed in order to rule out the heavy muon interpretation completely. (15 refs).