External meeting: KATRIN - direct measurement of neutrino masses with sub-eV sensitivity - Version Anglaise seulement
GENEVA UNIVERSITY - ECOLE DE PHYSIQUE
Département de physique nucléaire et corspusculaire
24, Quai Ernest-Ansermet
1211 GENEVE 4 - Tél : 022 379 62 73 - Fax: 022 379 69 92
Wednesday 18 April 2007
PARTICLE PHYSICS SEMINAR
at 17:00 - Stückelberg Auditorium
KATRIN - direct measurement of neutrino masses with sub-eV sensitivity
by Prof. Guido Drexlin, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology KIT
The major scientific objective of the international Karlsruhe Tritum Neutrino (KATRIN) Experiment is the model independent measurement of the electron neutrino mass in tritium beta decay with a sensitivity of 200 meV. In the cosmological context, this allows an investigation of whether massive relic neutrinos left over from the Big Bang play a specific role as hot dark matter in the evolution of large scale structures of the universe. In particle physics KATRIN will allow for discrimination between different neutrino mass models (either of quasi-degenerate or hierarchical pattern).The key components of KATRIN comprise an ultra-luminous windowless gaseous molecular tritium source, an electron transport and tritium elimination system, a tandem of electrostatic spectrometers with the tasks of energy pre-filtering and analysis (?E=1 eV) and a detector for ß-counting.The talk gives an overview of the motivations for a next-generation direct neutrino mass experiment as well as of the current project status. Special emphasis is put on the large main spectrometer with its diameter of 10 m and a length of 24 m, which is currently being commissioned on the site of Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe after an 8800 km voyage around Europe. Finally the neutrino mass sensitvity of KATRIN will be discussed and the implications of KATRIN for cosmology and particle physics will be outlined.
Information: http://dpnc.unige.ch/seminaire/annonce.html
Organizer : J.-S. Graulich