Speakers
Description
The Electron Capture in $^{163}$Ho (ECHo) experiment is designed to investigate the electron neutrino mass $m_{\nu_e}$ with sub-$eV$ sensitivity by the analysis of the electron capture (EC) energy spectrum of $^{163}$Ho.
The sensitivity on the electron neutrino mass is crucially related to the energy available for the decay $Q_{EC}$ = $2833(30$stat$)(15$sys$)\,eV$, which has been precisely determined by the ECHo collaboration.
Accordingly, a sensitivity below $10\,eV$ is expected to be attained at the end of the present phase of the experiment, ECHo-1k.
In this phase, about $1\,kBq$ of high purity $^{163}$Ho is going to be implanted in multiplexed arrays of low temperature metallic magnetic calorimeters which are operated in a reduced background environment.
The goals of ECHo-1k are the precise characterization of the parameters describing the spectrum, optimizing the implantation process of $^{163}$Ho into the detector arrays, optimization of detector production and identification and reduction of the background in the experimental setup.
The results will pave the way to a future phase of the experiment, where activities of the order of $MBq$ $^{163}$Ho will be used.
This second phase aims to approach sub-$eV$ sensitivity on the electron neutrino mass.
Furthermore, the high statistics and high resolution measurement of the $^{163}$Ho electron capture spectrum will allow the investigation of the existence of $eV$ and keV-scale sterile neutrinos.
In this contribution, a general overview of the ECHo experiment is presented and the current status as well as the future perspectives are discussed.
