Study of multi-muon events produced in $p\bar{p}$ interactions at $\sqrt{s}=1.96$ TeV

We report a study of multi-muon events produced at the Fermilab Tevatron\ncollider and recorded by the CDFII detector. In a data set acquired with a\ndedicated dimuon trigger and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 2100\npb^-1, we isolate a significant sample of events in which at least one of the\nmuon candidates is produced outside of the beam pipe of radius 1.5cm. The\nproduction cross section and kinematics of events in which both muon candidates\nare produced inside the beam pipe are successfully modeled by known QCD\nprocesses which include heavy flavor production. In contrast, we are presently\nunable to fully account for the number and properties of the remaining events,\nin which at least one muon candidate is produced outside of the beam pipe, in\nterms of the same understanding of the CDFII detector, trigger, and event\nreconstruction. Several topological and kinematic properties of these events\nare presented in this paper. These events offer a plausible resolution to\nlong-standing inconsistencies related to b-bbar production and decay.\n