Description
The Project 8 experiment aims to directly measure the neutrino mass down to ∼40 meV/$c^2$ by reconstructing the kinematics of tritium beta decay, using a novel technique called Cyclotron Radiation Emission Spectroscopy (CRES). The operating principle is to put tritium in a uniform magnetic field, causing the emitted electron to undergo cyclotron motion and radiate. Measuring the electron’s radiation frequency yields its energy, and the energy spectrum constrains the mass of the neutrino involved in the decay. This method has been demonstrated in a small waveguide, but must be scaled to a larger volume to improve neutrino mass sensitivity. One of our proposed detection schemes is to have an array of slotted waveguide antennas viewing trapped electrons inside a MRI magnet. Detection is challenging because a single electron emits very low power and exhibits complex spectral features due to its motion. This poster will describe the simulation of the source and receivers, as well as experimental validations of the technique.
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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