Speaker
Prof.
Christian Weinheimer
(University of Münster, Germany)
Description
The KArlsruher TRItium Neutrino experiment KATRIN is going to search
for the neutrino mass from the endpoint region of the tritium beta
decay spectrum with one order of magnitude higher sensitivity of 0.2
eV/c2 compared to previous direct neutrino mass experiments. This
sensitvity will allow to distinguish between hierarchical and
quasi-degenerate neutrino mass scenarios as well as to investigate
the whole cosmological relevant neutrino mass range.
The KATRIN experiment is currently being set up at Forschungszentrum
Karlsruhe/Germany by an international collaboration. The key
elements of KATRIN are a windowless gaseous molecular tritium source
with an ultra-high luminosity and which minimizes systematic
uncertainties, a very effective tritium retention and electron
guiding system, the 23m long and 10m diameter main spectrometer of
MAC-E-Filter type, and an electron detector. This setup allows to
measure the tritium beta spectrum with unprecedented signal rate and
energy resolution of 0.93eV. The scientific context, the present
status of KATRIN, its technical challenges and a discussion on
KATRIN`s systematics and sensitivity will be presented.
