KATRIN: an experiment to measure the neutrino mass

TL;DR

KATRIN is a large-scale experiment designed to measure the neutrino mass with high sensitivity using tritium beta decay, aiming to improve current limits by an order of magnitude.

Contribution

This paper introduces the KATRIN experiment, a novel large-scale setup combining advanced spectrometry and a tritium source to achieve unprecedented sensitivity in neutrino mass measurement.

Findings

Designed to reach 0.2 eV sensitivity

Utilizes a large electrostatic-magnetic spectrometer

Independent of neutrino Dirac or Majorana nature

Abstract

KATRIN is a very large scale tritium-beta-decay experiment to determine the mass of the neutrino. It is presently under construction at the Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe, and makes use of the Tritium Laboratory built there for the ITER project. The combination of a very large retarding-potential electrostatic-magnetic spectrometer and an intense gaseous molecular tritium source makes possible a sensitivity to neutrino mass of 0.2 eV, about an order of magnitude below present laboratory limits. The measurement is kinematic and independent of whether the neutrino is Dirac or Majorana. The status of the project is summarized briefly in this report.