Description
Project 8 is a scientific collaboration developing next-generation technology for neutrino mass direct measurement, based on precision measurement of the cyclotron frequency of tritium $\beta$-decay electrons trapped in a magnetic field, known as Cyclotron Radiation Emission Spectroscopy or CRES. The measured cyclotron frequency is directly related to the $\beta$-decay energy, which is used to construct the decay energy spectrum from which a measurement of the neutrino mass can be made. Project 8’s goal neutrino mass sensitivity will require a CRES experiment performed in a multi-cubic meter volume of tritium gas in order to reach sufficient statistics in the spectrum endpoint region. To meet these requirements Project 8 has been developing technologies to detect single electrons in a large, free-space volume using a portion of the total radiated power (<1fW). One of these technologies consists of a multi-channel phased antenna array which surrounds the tritium gas in order to collect the cyclotron radiation emitted by magnetically trapped electrons. In my poster I will summarize the signal reconstruction algorithms that Project 8 is developing which use the antenna array to detect and reconstruct the signals from individual electrons in free space. These include a unique phased array beamforming algorithm, which uses time-dependent phases to track the position of individual electrons in the magnetic trap to boost the received SNR; as well as, a template based matched filtering search, which has the potential to significantly increase the detection efficiency of free-space CRES compared to more traditional approaches.
This work is supported by the US DOE Office of Nuclear Physics, the US NSF, the PRISMA+ Cluster of Excellence at the University of Mainz, and internal investments at all institutions.
| Collaboration | Project 8 |
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