Effect of a sweeping conductive wire on electrons stored in the Penning trap between the KATRIN spectrometers

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that periodically sweeping a conducting wire through a Penning trap in the KATRIN experiment effectively removes stored electrons, reduces background noise, and improves the sensitivity of neutrino mass measurements.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method of using a sweeping conductive wire to mitigate electron storage in Penning traps, enhancing experimental sensitivity.

Findings

Sweeping wire reduces stored electron population.

Discharge in the trap is effectively stopped.

Background count rate is significantly decreased.

Abstract

The KATRIN experiment is going to search for the mass of the electron antineutrino down to 0.2 eV/c^2. In order to reach this sensitivity the background rate has to be understood and minimised to 0.01 counts per second. One of the background sources is the unavoidable Penning trap for electrons due to the combination of the electric and magnetic fields between the pre- and the main spectrometer at KATRIN. In this article we will show that by sweeping a conducting wire periodically through such a particle trap stored particles can be removed, an ongoing discharge in the trap can be stopped, and the count rate measured with a detector looking at the trap is reduced.