München 2019 – scientific programme

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HK: Fachverband Physik der Hadronen und Kerne

HK 43: Astroparticle Physics III

HK 43.1: Group Report

Wednesday, March 20, 2019, 16:30–17:00, HS 16

From first tritium data towards neutrino mass measurements with the KATRIN Experiment — •Magnus Schlösser for the KATRIN collaboration — Karlsruhe Institute of Technology

The KArlsruhe TRitium Neutrino (KATRIN) experiment at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology aims for a direct neutrino mass determination with a sensitivity of 200 meV/c² (90% C.L.). The measurement is performed by precise spectroscopy of the tritium-β-decay electrons near the kinematic endpoint of 18.6 keV. That is achieved by employing a high-resolution (Δ E < 1 eV) MAC-E-type high-pass energy filter coupled to a high-luminosity (10¹¹ Bq) windowless gaseous tritium source. In Spring 2018, the first operation of KATRIN with traces of tritium has been successfully conducted. One principal aim of this campaign, the stability of the tritium source at an activity of about 0.5% (≈500 MBq) of the nominal level, has been demonstrated. In this talk, the achievements of the first tritium campaign are demonstrated and the first ever high-resolution spectra from tritium beta-decay electrons by KATRIN are presented. Insights into the ongoing KATRIN run are given in which the source activity was stepwise ramped up to the nominal source strength of 10¹¹ Bq in order to achieve the targeted statistics for the neutrino mass goal.

This work is supported by the Helmholtz Association (HGF), the Ministry for Education and Research BMBF (05A17PM3, 05A17PX3, 05A17VK2, and 05A17WO3), the Helmholtz Alliance for Astroparticle Physics (HAP), and the Helmholtz Young Investigator Group (VH-NG-1055).