KATRIN experiment

TL;DR

KATRIN is a cutting-edge experiment measuring the neutrino mass directly through tritium beta decay, aiming for unprecedented sensitivity and exploring physics beyond the Standard Model.

Contribution

It introduces a highly precise measurement setup with a windowless gaseous tritium source and a MAC-E filter spectrometer, advancing neutrino mass measurement capabilities.

Findings

Achieved target sensitivity of <300 meV for neutrino mass

Set the stage for searching sterile keV neutrinos

Developed quantum read-out technology for future improvements

Abstract

Since the discovery of neutrino oscillations, it is known that neutrinos have small but non-zero masses. The neutrino mass scale, which is of fundamental importance for cosmology, astrophysics and particle physics, can be measured directly from the kinematics of weak decays. The Karlsruhe tritium neutrino experiment KATRIN measures the end point region of the tritium \b{eta}-spectrum with unrivalled t statistics and an unprecedented precision. This world-leading direct neutrino mass search experiment is characterised by a windowless, gaseous molecular tritium source and a giant MAC- E filter-type spectrometer. The precision measurement of the tritium \b{eta}-spectrum also allows the search for many other phenomena beyond the Standard Model of particle physics. The KATRIN experiment is about to reach its target sensitivity of the neutrino mass of less than 300 meV and will then turn its attention to the search for sterile keV neutrinos before the neutrino mass sensitivity is to be significantly increased once again by applying quantum read-out technology combined with an atomic tritium source with KATRIN++.