Karlsruhe 2024 – scientific programme

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T: Fachverband Teilchenphysik

T 29: Neutrino physics 3

T 29.5: Talk

Tuesday, March 5, 2024, 17:00–17:15, Geb. 20.30: 2.058

Radiation hardness studies of the KATRIN detector upgrade to search for keV sterile neutrinos — •Verena Wallner — Technische Universität München, Deutschland

Sterile neutrinos represent a minimal expansion of the Standard Model of particle physics and serve as potential dark matter candidates when their mass falls within the keV range. Tritium beta decay can be used to experimentally observe sterile neutrinos with a mass of up to 18.6 keV. In that case, they would display a kink-like distortion in the electron energy spectrum. Currently, a silicon drift detector upgrade (TRISTAN) is being developed for the KATRIN experiment to search for keV-scale sterile neutrinos. This presentation is about the radiation hardness to electrons of the detector system. To investigate this question, a detection module is irradiated over a short period of time with electrons such that the integrated dose corresponds to one year's data acquisition with TRISTAN.

This work is supported by the Helmholtz Association and by the Ministry for Education and Research BMBF (grant numbers 05A23PMA, 05A23PX2, 05A23VK2 and 05A23WO6) and has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation programm (grant agreement No. 852845).

Keywords: sterile neutrinos; silicon drift detectors; radiation hardness