학술논문

Search for keV-scale sterile neutrinos with the first KATRIN data
Document Type
article
Source
European Physical Journal C. 83(8)
Subject
Nuclear and Plasma Physics
Particle and High Energy Physics
Physical Sciences
Atomic
Molecular
Nuclear
Particle and Plasma Physics
Quantum Physics
Nuclear & Particles Physics
Astronomical sciences
Atomic
molecular and optical physics
Particle and high energy physics
Language
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 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 1.6keV . We do not find a signal and set an exclusion limit on the sterile-to-active mixing amplitude of sin 2θ< 5 × 10 - 4 (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.