Erlangen 2026 – scientific programme
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T: Fachverband Teilchenphysik
T 60: Methods in Astroparticle Physics III
T 60.2: Talk
Wednesday, March 18, 2026, 16:30–16:45, KS 00.004
Atomic tritium source development for future neutrino mass experiments — •Caroline Rodenbeck — Karlsruher Institut für Technologie, IAP-TLK
The Karlsruhe Tritium Neutrino experiment (KATRIN), which measures the tritium beta-decay spectrum, recently reached its goal of 1000 measurement days. It is now well on its way to achieving its targeted final neutrino mass sensitivity of 0.3 eV/c2. Already, efforts are ongoing for future experiments aiming at sensitivities below 0.05 eV/c2.
Beyond improved detector technologies, switching from a molecular to an atomic tritium source will likely be necessary: The molecular ro-vibrational excitations result in an effective broadening of the endpoint spectrum and thus in a reduced neutrino mass sensitivity, an issue avoided by the use of an atomic source.
Within the Karlsruhe Mainz Atomic Tritium Experiment (KAMATE), groups at the Johannes Gutenberg University (JGU) in Mainz and at the KIT’s Tritium Laboratory Karlsruhe (TLK) benchmark different types of hydrogen dissociators (thermal dissociation versus RF-discharge plasma) as possible high-flux and high-efficiency sources. For the characterization of the dissociators, various analysis tools such as mass spectroscopy are under development.
After identifying suitable dissociators, key challenges such as multi-stage cooling and the magnetic trapping of atoms have to be addressed.
The talk gives an overview of the experimental achievements and an outlook for the cooling and trapping of atoms beyond the KAMATE efforts.
Keywords: neutrino mass; tritium; atoms; beta decay