Project 8: Measuring the tritium beta-decay spectrum using Cyclotron Radiation Emission Spectroscopy

Conference · Fri Mar 20 00:00:00 EDT 2020

OSTI ID:1668689

Oblath, Noah ^[1]

---

1. University of Cambridge

Abstract. The goal of the Project 8 experiment is to measure the absolute neutrino mass using tritium beta decays and a new spectroscopic technique, Cyclotron Radiation Emission Spectroscopy (CRES). The first phase of Project 8 demonstrated that CRES could be used to detect single-electron cyclotron radiation and perform precision electron spectroscopy. We are in Phase II of the experiment, performing a 100-day measurement of the endpoint of the tritium spectrum. We will demonstrate the ability to measure the last ~2 keV of the beta-decay spectrum and explore the background rate at energies just above the endpoint; CRES has the potential for extremely low backgrounds. In Phase III we will demonstrate the ability to scale up the volume of the experiment. In Phase IV we will switch the source from molecular tritium to atomic tritium, which will avoid systematic uncertainties from the final states of the molecule. I will present the current status of Project 8 Phase II and the plans for Phases III and IV.

• Research Organization: Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• DOE Contract Number: AC05-76RL01830
• OSTI ID: 1668689
• Report Number(s): PNNL-SA-148869
• Resource Relation: Conference: 16th International Conference on Topics in Astroparticle and Underground Physics, (TAUP 2019), September 9-13, 2019, Toyama, Japan. Journal of Physics: Conference Series
• Country of Publication: United Kingdom
• Language: English