• DOI:10.1140/epjc/s10052-021-09325-z
• Corpus ID: 234681240

Precision measurement of the electron energy-loss function in tritium and deuterium gas for the KATRIN experiment

@article{Aker2021PrecisionMO,
  title={Precision measurement of the electron energy-loss function in tritium and deuterium gas for the KATRIN experiment},
  author={Max Aker and Armen Beglarian and Jan Behrens and Anatoly Berlev and Uwe Besserer and Benedikt Bieringer and Fabian Block and Beate Bornschein and Lutz Bornschein and Markus Bottcher and Tim Brunst and Thomas S. Caldwell and R. M. D. Carney and Suren Chilingaryan and Wonqook Choi and Karol Debowski and Marco Deffert and Martin Descher and D. D'iaz Barrero and Peter J. Doe and Otokar Dragoun and Guido Drexlin and Frank Edzards and Klaus Eitel and Enrico Ellinger and A. El Miniawy and Ralph Engel and Sanshiro Enomoto and Arne Felden and Joseph A. Formaggio and Florian Frankle and Gregg B. Franklin and Fabian Friedel and Alexander Fulst and Kevin Gauda and Woosik Gil and Ferenc Gluck and Stefanie Groh and R. Grossle and Rainer Gumbsheimer and Volker Hannen and Norman Hau{\ss}mann and Florian Heizmann and Klaus Helbing and Stephanie Virginia Hickford and R. Hiller and David Hillesheimer and Dominic Hinz and Tierra Hohn and Th. Houdy and Anton Huber and Alexander Jansen and Christian Karl and Jonas Kellerer and Marco Kleesiek and Manuel Klein and Christian Kohler and L. Kollenberger and Andreas Kopmann and Marc Korzeczek and A. Koval'ik and Bennet Krasch and Holger Krause and Norbert Kunka and Thierry Lasserre and Luisa La Cascio and Ondrej Lebeda and Bjoern Lehnert and Thanh-Long Le and Alexey Lokhov and Moritz Machatschek and Emma Malcherek and M. Mark and Alexander Marsteller and E. L. Mart{\'i}n and Matthias Meier and Christin Melzer and Alexander Menshikov and Susanne Mertens and J. Mostafa and K. Muller and Simon Niemes and Patrick Oelpmann and Diana S. Parno and Alan W. P. Poon and Jose M. Lopez Poyato and Florian Priester and Philipp C.-O. Ranitzsch and R. G. Hamish Robertson and Werner Rodejohann and Caroline Rodenbeck and M. Rollig and C. Rottele and M. Ryvsav'y and Rudolf Sack and Alejandro Saenz and P. Schafer and Anna Schaller and Lutz Schimpf and K. Schlosser and M. Schlosser and L. Schluter and S. Schneidewind and Michael Schrank and Bruno Schulz and C. Schwachtgen and M. vSefvc'ik and Hendrik Seitz-Moskaliuk and Val{\'e}rian Sibille and Daniel Siegmann and Martin Slez'ak and Markus Steidl and Michael Sturm and M. Sun and Denis Tcherniakhovski and Helmut H. Telle and Larisa A. Thorne and Th. Thummler and Nikita Titov and Igor Tkachev and Nikolaus Trost and Korbinian Urban and Kathrin Valerius and D. V'enos and A. P. Vizcaya Hern'andez and Christian Weinheimer and Stefan Welte and J{\"u}rgen Wendel and John F. Wilkerson and Jack Keil Wolf and Sascha Wustling and W. Xu and Yung-Ruey Yen and Sergey Zadoroghny and Genrich Zeller},
  journal={The European Physical Journal C},
  year={2021}
}

• M. Aker, A. Beglarian, +132 authors G. Zeller
• Published 14 May 2021
• Physics
• The European Physical Journal C

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 $$\upbeta $$
β
-decay endpoint region with a sensitivity on $$m_\nu $$

m
ν

of 0.2 $$\hbox {eV}/\hbox {c}^2$$

eV
/

c
2

(90% CL). For this purpose, the $$\upbeta $$
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 $$\upbeta $$
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% $$\hbox {T}_2$$

T
2

gas mixture at 30 K, as used in the first KATRIN neutrino-mass analyses, as well as a $$\hbox {D}_2$$

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 $$\sigma (m_\nu ^2)< {{10}^{-2}}{\hbox {eV}^{2}}$$

σ

(

m
ν
2

)

<

10

-
2

eV
2

[1] in the KATRIN neutrino-mass measurement to a subdominant level.