# Conference on Science at the Sanford Underground Research Facility 2017

12-16 May 2017
South Dakota School of Mines and Technology
US/Mountain timezone
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The KATRIN neutrino mass experiment

Content: The objective of the Karlsruhe Tritium Neutrino experiment (KATRIN) is the measurement of the effective electron neutrino mass with an unprecedented model-independent sensitivity of 200 meV/c$^2$. This will improve present limits by one order of magnitude and allows to con-strain the role of relic neutrinos as hot dark matter in structure evolution. A non-zero neutrino mass in the sub-eV range induces only a minute deviation of the $\beta$-decay spectrum close to the kinematic endpoint. In the case of KATRIN, high-purity molecular triti-um is used as $\beta$-emitter. The components of KATRIN, a high intensity windowless tritium source ($10^{11}$ Bq), and a huge 24-m long electrostatic spectrometer (MAC-E-filter) with an energy resolution of 1 eV at the $\beta$-endpoint of 18.6 keV guarantee high precision spectroscopy. The overall 70-m long setup is presently being commissioned at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) by an international collaboration of about 130 scientists. This talk describes the goals and challenges of the experiment and reports on the progress in the ongoing commissioning of the experiment. Initial background results from one year of spectrometer operation will be presented. We acknowledge the support of the Helmholtz Association (HGF), the German Ministry for Education and Research BMBF (05A14VK2) and the Helmholtz Alliance for Astroparticle Physics (HAP).
Id: 46
Place: Electrical Engineering & Physics Building
Room: 252
Starting date:
 13-May-2017 16:40 (US/Mountain)
Duration: 20'
Contribution type: Presentation
Primary Authors: WOLF, Joachim (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT))
Presenters: WOLF, Joachim
Material: Slides
Included in session: Neutrino Oscillation Parallel
Included in track: Neutrino Oscillations