Photo-absorption of
γ
-rays
in thin Al, Co, Ti, and Mo convertors was examined with the aim to produce quasi monoenergetic photoelectrons having an energy spread of 0.5–4.7
eV about mean kinetic ...energies at discrete values between 18632 and 80321
eV. The photoelectron rates were estimated for commercial photon sources of
241Am,
119mSn,
125mTe and
109Cd with activities of 0.55–3.7
GBq. Photoelectrons ejected by
241Am
γ
‐
and X-rays from Co convertors were measured with two different electron spectrometers and obtained energy spectra were compared with Monte Carlo predictions.
In this work we present a keV-scale sterile-neutrino search with a low-tritium-activity data set of the KATRIN experiment, acquired in a commissioning run in 2018. KATRIN performs a spectroscopic ...measurement of the tritium
β
-decay spectrum with the main goal of directly determining the effective electron anti-neutrino mass. During this commissioning phase a lower tritium activity facilitated the measurement of a wider part of the tritium spectrum and thus the search for sterile neutrinos with a mass of up to
1.6
keV
. We do not find a signal and set an exclusion limit on the sterile-to-active mixing amplitude of
sin
2
θ
<
5
×
10
-
4
(
95
%
C.L.) at a mass of 0.3 keV. This result improves current laboratory-based bounds in the sterile-neutrino mass range between 0.1 and 1.0 keV.
The effect of undetected imperfections of the energy scale on the results of electron spectroscopy experiment is studied for the conditions close to the tritium
β-decay experiment KATRIN (KATRIN ...Collaboration, 2001, arxiv: hep-ex/0109033). A numerical model of the experiment is developed, verified, and used to deduce general trends of fitted parameters. The effects of energy bias and of wrong slope of the calibration line are studied in more detail.
The neutrino mass experiment KATRIN requires a stability of 3 ppm for the retarding potential at - 18.6 kV of the main spectrometer. To monitor the stability, two custom-made ultra-precise ...high-voltage dividers were developed and built in cooperation with the German national metrology institute Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB). Until now, regular absolute calibration of the voltage dividers required bringing the equipment to the specialised metrology laboratory. Here we present a new method based on measuring the energy difference of two Formula omittedKr conversion electron lines with the KATRIN setup, which was demonstrated during KATRIN's commissioning measurements in July 2017. The measured scale factor Formula omitted of the high-voltage divider K35 is in agreement with the last PTB calibration 4 years ago. This result demonstrates the utility of the calibration method, as well as the long-term stability of the voltage divider.
The KATRIN experiment is designed for a direct and model-independent determination of the effective electron anti-neutrino mass via a high-precision measurement of the tritium
β
-decay endpoint ...region with a sensitivity on
m
ν
of 0.2
eV
/
c
2
(90% CL). For this purpose, the
β
-electrons from a high-luminosity windowless gaseous tritium source traversing an electrostatic retarding spectrometer are counted to obtain an integral spectrum around the endpoint energy of 18.6 keV. A dominant systematic effect of the response of the experimental setup is the energy loss of
β
-electrons from elastic and inelastic scattering off tritium molecules within the source. We determined the energy-loss function in-situ with a pulsed angular-selective and monoenergetic photoelectron source at various tritium-source densities. The data was recorded in integral and differential modes; the latter was achieved by using a novel time-of-flight technique. We developed a semi-empirical parametrization for the energy-loss function for the scattering of 18.6-keV electrons from hydrogen isotopologs. This model was fit to measurement data with a 95%
T
2
gas mixture at 30 K, as used in the first KATRIN neutrino-mass analyses, as well as a
D
2
gas mixture of 96% purity used in KATRIN commissioning runs. The achieved precision on the energy-loss function has abated the corresponding uncertainty of
σ
(
m
ν
2
)
<
10
-
2
eV
2
1
in the KATRIN neutrino-mass measurement to a subdominant level.
In this work we present a keV-scale sterile-neutrino search with a low-tritium-activity data set of the KATRIN experiment, acquired in a commissioning run in 2018. KATRIN performs a spectroscopic ...measurement of the tritium β-decay spectrum with the main goal of directly determining the effective electron anti-neutrino mass. During this commissioning phase a lower tritium activity facilitated the measurement of a wider part of the tritium spectrum and thus the search for sterile neutrinos with a mass of up to 1.6 keV. We do not find a signal and set an exclusion limit on the sterile-to-active mixing amplitude of $\text {sin}^{2}\: \theta<5\times 10^{-4}\: (95\%\: $C.L) at a mass of 0.3 keV. This result improves current laboratory-based bounds in the sterile-neutrino mass range between 0.1 and 1.0 keV.
The KArlsruhe TRItium Neutrino experiment (KATRIN) aims to determine the effective electron (anti)-neutrino mass with a sensitivity of 0.2eV/c
2
by precisely measuring the endpoint region of the ...tritium
β
-decay spectrum. It uses a tandem of electrostatic spectrometers working as magnetic adiabatic collimation combined with an electrostatic (MAC-E) filters. In the space between the pre-spectrometer and the main spectrometer, creating a Penning trap is unavoidable when the superconducting magnet between the two spectrometers, biased at their respective nominal potentials, is energized. The electrons accumulated in this trap can lead to discharges, which create additional background electrons and endanger the spectrometer and detector section downstream. To counteract this problem, “electron catchers” were installed in the beamline inside the magnet bore between the two spectrometers. These catchers can be moved across the magnetic-flux tube and intercept on a sub-ms time scale the stored electrons along their magnetron motion paths. In this paper, we report on the design and the successful commissioning of the electron catchers and present results on their efficiency in reducing the experimental background.
The KArlsruhe TRItium Neutrino (KATRIN) experiment aims to make a model-independent determination of the effective electron antineutrino mass with a sensitivity of 0.2 eV/c2. It investigates the ...kinematics of β-particles from tritium β-decay close to the endpoint of the energy spectrum. Because the KATRIN main spectrometer (MS) is located above ground, muon-induced backgrounds are of particular concern. Coincidence measurements with the MS and a scintillator-based muon detector system confirmed the model of secondary electron production by cosmic-ray muons inside the MS. Correlation measurements with the same setup showed that about 12% of secondary electrons emitted from the inner surface are induced by cosmic-ray muons, with approximately one secondary electron produced for every 17 muon crossings. However, the magnetic and electrostatic shielding of the MS is able to efficiently suppress these electrons, and we find that muons are responsible for less than 17% (90% confidence level) of the overall MS background.
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