Heidelberg 2022 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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T: Fachverband Teilchenphysik

T 49: Neutrino Physics without Accelerators 4

T 49.2: Vortrag

Dienstag, 22. März 2022, 16:35–16:50, T-H34

Atomic hydrogen beam monitor for Project 8 — •Christian Matthe and Sebastian Böser for the Project 8 collaboration — Institute of Physics and Excellence Cluster PRISMA+, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, 55099 Mainz, Germany

The Project 8 collaboration aims to determine the absolute neutrino mass with a sensitivity of 40 meV by measuring the tritium decay spectrum around the endpoint energy. For this level of precision it is necessary to use atomic tritium, since molecular tritium sensitivity is limited by the molecular final state distribution to about 100 meV. We anticipate using an atomic tritium flux of ≈10¹⁹ atoms/s from a source to inject a beam with ≈ 10¹⁵ atoms/s of the proper state and temperature into the detection volume.

For monitoring this beam, we are developing a detector that uses a wire with a micrometer-scale diameter intersecting the beam on which a small fraction of the beam’s hydrogen atoms recombine into molecules. The energy released heats the wire and produces a measurable change in its resistance. Using either a grid of wires or a sweep with a single wire the beam profile will be determined. Such a detector is suitable for both development work and for minimally disruptive online monitoring in the final experiment. In this talk I will present first results using such a detector in the beam of the Mainz atomic hydrogen setup.