Wuppertal 2015 – scientific programme

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T: Fachverband Teilchenphysik

T 39: Eingeladene Vorträge 1

T 39.2: Semi-Invited Talk

Tuesday, March 10, 2015, 14:15–14:45, M.10.12 (HS 14)

Search for Sterile Neutrinos in Tritium Beta Decay — •Susanne Mertens — Nuclear Science Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA

Sterile neutrinos in the keV mass range are a prime candidate for dark matter. In particular, this form of dark matter, as opposed to weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPS), can act as warm dark matter, the existence of which would reconcile recent structure observations from sub-galactic to larger scales.

A unique way to search for sterile neutrinos in a model-independent laboratory experiment is via tritium β-decay. A sterile neutrino would manifest itself as a kink-like signature and a spectral distortion in the β-decay spectrum.

In this talk the sensitivity of a KATRIN-like experiment to keV-scale sterile neutrinos will be presented. Furthermore, the first steps towards an upgraded detector system that would allow KATRIN to extend its physics reach from probing the neutrino mass in the sub-eV range to look for sterile neutrinos in the keV mass range will be discussed.