Hannover 2013 – scientific programme
Parts | Days | Selection | Search | Updates | Downloads | Help
MS: Fachverband Massenspektrometrie
MS 1: Precision Mass Spectrometry and Fundamental Applications I
MS 1.3: Talk
Monday, March 18, 2013, 11:45–12:00, F 442
Status of THe-Trap — •Sebastian Streubel1, Tommi Eronen1, Martin Höcker1, Jochen Ketter1, Robert S. Van Dyck Jr.2, and Klaus Blaum1 — 1Max-Planck-Institut für Kernphysik, Saupfercheckweg 1, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany — 2Department of Physics, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195-1560, USA
THe-Trap (short for Tritium-3He Trap) is a Penning-trap setup dedicated to measure the 3H to 3He mass-ratio with a relative uncertainty of better than 10−11. The ratio is of relevance for the KArlsruhe TRItium Neutrino experiment (KATRIN), which aims to measure the electron anti-neutrino mass, by measuring the shape of the β-decay energy spectrum close to its endpoint. An independent measurement of the 3H to 3He mass-ratio pins down this endpoint, and thus will help to determine the systematics of KATRIN.
The trap setup consists of two Penning-traps: One trap for precision measurements, the other trap for ion storage. Ideally, the trap content will be periodically switched, which reduces the time between the measurements of the two ions’ motional frequencies.
In 2012, a mass ratio measurement of 12C4+ to 14N5+ was performed to characterize systematic effects of the traps. This measurement yielded a accuracy of 10−9. Further investigations revealed that a major reason for the modest accuracy is the large axial amplitude of ≈ 100 µm, compared to a ideal case of 3 µm at 4 K. In addition, relative magnetic fluctuations at a 3× 10−10 level on a 10 h timescale need to be significantly improved. In this contribution, the aforementioned findings and further systematic studies will be presented.