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HK: Fachverband Hadronen und Kerne

HK 29: Astroparticle Physics

HK 29.4: Talk

Tuesday, March 17, 2009, 15:00–15:15, H-ZO 70

Modelling the Tritium Source of KATRIN — •Wolfgang Kaefer — Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe GmbH, Institut für Kernphysik

The objective of the KArlsruhe TRItium Neutrino experiment KATRIN is the determination of the mass of the neutrino with a sensitivity of 200 meV by investigating the kinematics of the electrons from Tritium β decay. It is currently under construction at Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe.

A key component of the KATRIN experiment is the Windowless Gaseous Tritium Source (WGTS), in which Tritium decays with an activity of 10¹¹ Bq. A precise understanding of the properties of the WGTS is mandatory for the neutrino mass determination. In particular the gas dynamics is crucial since the measured energy spectrum is influenced by inelastic scattering of the decay electrons with the Tritium molecules as well as Doppler broadening of the electron energy. Therefore parameters of the WGTS such as purity, temperature, density and velocity distributions of the Tritium gas and the magnetic field strength inside the WGTS have to be modelled in detail.

This talk gives an overview over the simulation and modelling program package currently in development which allows to study the influence of the WGTS parameters on the measured electron energy spectrum.

Supported by the BMBF with project number 05A08VK2 and by the DFG in SFB TR 27.