J PSI, PSI' AND MUON PAIR PRODUCTION IN P-W AND S-U COLLISIONS/

In this paper we present a study on the production of the J/psi and ps i' resonances, decaying into muon pairs, in S-U collisions, at 200 GeV per incident nucleon. We find that the ratio between psi' and J/psi y ields decreases as E(T), the neutral transverse energy produced in the collision, increases. There is also a clear decrease of this ratio wh en going from p-W to S-U interactions. Assuming the high mass continuu m to be Drell-Yan we discuss the possible understanding of the interme diate dimuon mass region as a superposition of Drell-Yan (extrapolated down in mass) and muon pairs from the semileptonic decays of charmed mesons. The p-W data is found to be explained by this procedure. Howev er, the S-U data seems to be incompatible with a linear extrapolation from the proton-nucleus results.