Search for keV-scale sterile neutrinos with the first KATRIN data
Author(s)
Aker, M.; Batzler, D.; Beglarian, A.; Behrens, J.; Berlev, A.; Besserer, U.; Bieringer, B.; Block, F.; Bobien, S.; Bornschein, B.; Bornschein, L.; Böttcher, M.; Brunst, T.; Caldwell, T. S.; Chilingaryan, S.; Choi, W.; Debowski, K.; Descher, M.; Barrero, D. D.; Doe, P. J.; ... Show more Show less
Download10052_2023_Article_11818.pdf (1.137Mb)
Publisher with Creative Commons License
Publisher with Creative Commons License
Creative Commons Attribution
Terms of use
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Abstract
In this work we present a keV-scale sterile-neutrino search with a low-tritium-activity data set of the KATRIN experiment, acquired in a commissioning run in 2018. KATRIN performs a spectroscopic measurement of the tritium
$$\upbeta $$
β
-decay spectrum with the main goal of directly determining the effective electron anti-neutrino mass. During this commissioning phase a lower tritium activity facilitated the measurement of a wider part of the tritium spectrum and thus the search for sterile neutrinos with a mass of up to
$$1.6\, \textrm{keV}$$
1.6
keV
. We do not find a signal and set an exclusion limit on the sterile-to-active mixing amplitude of
$$\sin ^2\theta < 5\times 10^{-4}$$
sin
2
θ
<
5
×
10
-
4
(
$$95\%$$
95
%
C.L.) at a mass of 0.3 keV. This result improves current laboratory-based bounds in the sterile-neutrino mass range between 0.1 and 1.0 keV.
Date issued
2023-08-29Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Laboratory for Nuclear SciencePublisher
Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Citation
The European Physical Journal C. 2023 Aug 29;83(8):763
Version: Final published version