Speaker
Ms
Susanne Mertens
(Max Planck Institute for Physics)
Description
The Karlsruhe Tritium Neutrino (KATRIN) experiment is designed to directly measure the absolute neutrino mass scale from the kinematics of tritium beta-decay with an unprecedented sensitivity of 200 meV (90%CL). A nonzero neutrino mass reduces the endpoint energy and distorts the spectrum, especially in the vicinity of this endpoint. Thanks to the high source luminosity and stability KATRIN has the ability to extend its physics program to also search for eV- to keV-scale sterile neutrinos.
This talk will focus on the results of the first tritium measurement campaign that took place in June 2018. As a major result this so-called "First-Tritium" phase demonstrated the integrity of the full electron beamline and the system stability at the required level. Moreover, the presentation will cover the current R&D effort that is targeted at extending the KATRIN setup in the future to enable a high-sensitivity sterile neutrino search.
Primary author
Ms
Susanne Mertens
(Max Planck Institute for Physics)
