Hannover 2013 – scientific programme
Parts | Days | Selection | Search | Updates | Downloads | Help
A: Fachverband Atomphysik
A 49: 100 Years of Mass Spectrometry 2
A 49.2: Invited Talk
Friday, March 22, 2013, 14:30–15:00, E 415
Towards accurate T-3He Q-value — •Tommi Eronen1, Martin Höcker1, Jochen Ketter1, Sebastian Streubel1, Robert S. Van Dyck2, and Klaus Blaum1 — 1Max-Planck Institut für Kernphysik, Saupfercheckweg 1, 69117 Heidelberg — 2Department of Physics, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195-1560, USA
Great efforts have been put forward to determine the neutrino mass from tritium β decay. The most prominent experimental setup, KATRIN [1], is expected to deliver an upper limit to the neutrino mass that is one order of magnitude more stringent than the current value by measuring the endpoint and the shape of the β spectrum of the tritium decay.
The endpoint energy (assuming zero neutrino mass) can also be deduced from the Q-value of the decay by measuring the mass difference of tritium and the daughter 3He using high-resolution mass spectrometry. Such a measurement would give an excellent, independent calibration point for the KATRIN experiment to deduce its systematics.
Our mass-difference measurement utilizes the Tritium-Helium double Penning trap (THe-Trap) setup [2]. Based on the anharmonic cyclotron frequency determination method pioneered at the University of Washington, Seattle, precision at the level of 1 part in 1011 in the T/3He mass ratio is expected. In this contribution, I will describe the motivation, the principle, current status, and expectations of the experiment.
[1] Wolf J., Nucl. Instr. Meth., Sect. A 623, 442 (2010).
[2] Diehl C. et al., Hyperfine Interact. 199, 291 (2011).