Relativistic cyclotron radiation detection of tritium decay electrons as a new technique for measuring the neutrino mass
- Department of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, California (United States)
The shape of the beta-decay energy distribution is sensitive to the mass of the electron neutrino. Attempts to measure the endpoint shape of tritium decay have so far seen no distortion from the zero-mass form, thus placing an upper limit of m{sub {nu}}{sub {beta}}<2.3 eV. Here, we show that a new type of electron energy spectroscopy could improve future measurements of this spectrum and therefore of the neutrino mass. We propose to detect the coherent cyclotron radiation emitted by an energetic electron in a magnetic field. For mildly relativistic electrons, like those in tritium decay, the relativistic shift of the cyclotron frequency allows us to extract the electron energy from the emitted radiation. We present calculations for the energy resolution, noise limits, high-rate measurement capability, and systematic errors expected in such an experiment.
- OSTI ID:
- 21322546
- Journal Information:
- Physical Review. D, Particles Fields, Vol. 80, Issue 5; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.80.051301; (c) 2009 The American Physical Society; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0556-2821
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
An electrostatic spectrometer for neutrino mass measurements using frozen molecular tritium
Detecting non-relativistic cosmic neutrinos by capture on tritium: phenomenology and physics potential