XXth International Conference on Neutrino Physics and Astrophysics
B.Flatt
Design of KATRIN Pre Spectrometer
With the compelling evidence for massive neutrinos from recent
neutrino oscillation experiments, one of the most fundamental tasks of
particle physics over the next years will be the determination of the
absolute mass scale of neutrinos. The planned KArlsruhe TRItium
Neutrino experiment KATRIN is the next-generation tritium beta-decay
experiment with a sensitivity of 0.3 eV for the mass of the
electron-neutrino. KATRIN will be based on a high luminosity tritium
source and a system of two retarding electro-static spectrometers. It
will allow to measure the spectral shape close to the endpoint of the
tritium beta-decay spectrum with an energy resolution of 1 eV. The
first spectrometer, the so-called pre-spectrometer, will prevent the
main part of beta-electrons from proceeding to the main spectrometer,
where they would contribute to the background rate through
interactions with residual gas molecules. The pre-spectrometer will be
built in 2002 at FZK (Karlsruhe) and will act as a test facility for
investigations of XUHV techniques. It will also be used to optimize
the electro-magnetic design of the KATRIN MAC-E-filter system. This
project is supported in part by the German BMBF (No. 05CK1VK1/7 and
05CK1UM1/5).