1. Particle Physics Seminar

    "Project 8: tritium decays, neutrino masses, and single-electron spectroscopy"

    Presented by Prof. Ben Monreal, UC Santa Barbara

    Friday, February 26, 2016, 10 am
    Small Seminar Room, Bldg. 510

    Hosted by: Xin Qian

    Beta decay kinematics are, in principle, sensitive to the absolute values of the neutrino masses. Many decades of work with tritium decay have shown m_nu to be in the range 0—2.0 eV; require improvement in spectrometer resolution, statistics, and systematics. The KATRIN experiment will push the limits of classical techniques to reach 0.2 eV sensitivity. The Project 8 is developing what we hope is the next step in beta electron spectroscopy; we can now perform precise electron energy measurements, in-situ in a low-pressure gaseous source, by cyclotron radiation energy spectroscopy (CRES). I will show recent results from the Project 8 prototype, including the first CRES measurements in krypton, and our path to first molecular tritum measurements and to a future large atomic tritium experiment.