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 sin2θ<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.

Details

Title
Search for keV-scale sterile neutrinos with the first KATRIN data
Author
Aker, M. 1 ; Batzler, D. 1 ; Beglarian, A. 2 ; Behrens, J. 1 ; Berlev, A. 3 ; Besserer, U. 1 ; Bieringer, B. 4 ; Block, F. 5 ; Bobien, S. 6 ; Bornschein, B. 1 ; Bornschein, L. 1 ; Böttcher, M. 4 ; Brunst, T. 7 ; Caldwell, T. S. 8 ; Chilingaryan, S. 2 ; Choi, W. 5 ; Debowski, K. 9 ; Descher, M. 5 ; Barrero, D. Díaz 10 ; Doe, P. J. 11 ; Dragoun, O. 12 ; Drexlin, G. 5 ; Edzards, F. 7 ; Eitel, K. 1 ; Ellinger, E. 9 ; Engel, R. 1 ; Enomoto, S. 11 ; Felden, A. 1 ; Formaggio, J. A. 13 ; Fränkle, F. M. 1 ; Franklin, G. B. 14 ; Friedel, F. 1 ; Fulst, A. 4 ; Gauda, K. 4 ; Gavin, A. S. 8 ; Gil, W. 1 ; Glück, F. 1 ; Grössle, R. 1 ; Gumbsheimer, R. 1 ; Hannen, V. 4 ; Haußmann, N. 9 ; Helbing, K. 9 ; Hickford, S. 1 ; Hiller, R. 1 ; Hillesheimer, D. 1 ; Hinz, D. 1 ; Höhn, T. 1 ; Houdy, T. 7 ; Huber, A. 1 ; Jansen, A. 1 ; Karl, C. 7 ; Kellerer, J. 5 ; Kleifges, M. 2 ; Klein, M. 1 ; Köhler, C. 7 ; Köllenberger, L. 1 ; Kopmann, A. 2 ; Korzeczek, M. 5 ; Kovalík, A. 12 ; Krasch, B. 1 ; Krause, H. 1 ; La Cascio, L. 5 ; Lasserre, T. 15 ; Le, T. L. 1 ; Lebeda, O. 12 ; Lehnert, B. 16 ; Lokhov, A. 4 ; Machatschek, M. 1 ; Malcherek, E. 1 ; Mark, M. 1 ; Marsteller, A. 1 ; Martin, E. L. 8 ; Melzer, C. 1 ; Mertens, S. 7 ; Mostafa, J. 2 ; Müller, K. 1 ; Neumann, H. 6 ; Niemes, S. 1 ; Oelpmann, P. 4 ; Parno, D. S. 14 ; Poon, A. W. P. 16 ; Poyato, J. M. L. 10 ; Priester, F. 1 ; Ráliš, J. 12 ; Ramachandran, S. 9 ; Robertson, R. G. H. 11 ; Rodejohann, W. 17 ; Rodenbeck, C. 4 ; Röllig, M. 1 ; Röttele, C. 1 ; Ryšavý, M. 12 ; Sack, R. 12 ; Saenz, A. 18 ; Salomon, R. 4 ; Schäfer, P. 1 ; Schimpf, L. 19 ; Schlösser, M. 1 ; Schlösser, K. 1 ; Schlüter, L. 7 ; Schneidewind, S. 4 ; Schrank, M. 1 ; Schwemmer, A. 7 ; Šefǧík, M. 12 ; Sibille, V. 13 ; Siegmann, D. 7 ; Slezák, M. 7 ; Spanier, F. 20 ; Steidl, M. 1 ; Sturm, M. 1 ; Telle, H. H. 10 ; Thorne, L. A. 14 ; Thümmler, T. 1 ; Titov, N. 3 ; Tkachev, I. 3 ; Urban, K. 21 ; Valerius, K. 1 ; Vénos, D. 12 ; Hernández, A. P. Vizcaya 14 ; Weinheimer, C. 4 ; Welte, S. 1 ; Wendel, J. 1 ; Wetter, M. 5 ; Wiesinger, C. 21 ; Wilkerson, J. F. 22 ; Wolf, J. 5 ; Wüstling, S. 2 ; Wydra, J. 1 ; Xu, W. 13 ; Zadoroghny, S. 3 ; Zeller, G. 1 

1  Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Institute for Astroparticle Physics (IAP), Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Germany (GRID:grid.7892.4) (ISNI:0000 0001 0075 5874) 
2  Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Institute for Data Processing and Electronics (IPE), Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Germany (GRID:grid.7892.4) (ISNI:0000 0001 0075 5874) 
3  Institute for Nuclear Research of Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia (GRID:grid.425051.7) (ISNI:0000 0000 9467 3767) 
4  University of Münster, Institute for Nuclear Physics, Münster, Germany (GRID:grid.5949.1) (ISNI:0000 0001 2172 9288) 
5  Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Institute of Experimental Particle Physics (ETP), Karlsruhe, Germany (GRID:grid.7892.4) (ISNI:0000 0001 0075 5874) 
6  Institute for Technical Physics (ITEP), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Germany (GRID:grid.7892.4) (ISNI:0000 0001 0075 5874) 
7  Technische Universität München, Garching, Germany (GRID:grid.6936.a) (ISNI:0000 0001 2322 2966); Max-Planck-Institut für Physik, Munich, Germany (GRID:grid.435824.c) (ISNI:0000 0001 2375 0603) 
8  University of North Carolina, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Chapel Hill, USA (GRID:grid.10698.36) (ISNI:0000 0001 2248 3208); Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory, Durham, USA (GRID:grid.440684.a) 
9  University of Wuppertal, Department of Physics, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Wuppertal, Germany (GRID:grid.7787.f) (ISNI:0000 0001 2364 5811) 
10  Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Campus de Cantoblanco, Departamento de Química Física Aplicada, Madrid, Spain (GRID:grid.5515.4) (ISNI:0000 0001 1957 8126) 
11  University of Washington, Center for Experimental Nuclear Physics and Astrophysics, and Dept. of Physics, Seattle, USA (GRID:grid.34477.33) (ISNI:0000 0001 2298 6657) 
12  Nuclear Physics Institute, Czech Academy of Sciences, Řež, Czech Republic (GRID:grid.418095.1) (ISNI:0000 0001 1015 3316) 
13  Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Laboratory for Nuclear Science, Cambridge, USA (GRID:grid.116068.8) (ISNI:0000 0001 2341 2786) 
14  Carnegie Mellon University, Department of Physics, Pittsburgh, USA (GRID:grid.147455.6) (ISNI:0000 0001 2097 0344) 
15  Université Paris-Saclay, IRFU (DPhP and APC), CEA, Gif-sur-Yvette, France (GRID:grid.460789.4) (ISNI:0000 0004 4910 6535) 
16  Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Institute for Nuclear and Particle Astrophysics and Nuclear Science Division, Berkeley, USA (GRID:grid.184769.5) (ISNI:0000 0001 2231 4551) 
17  Max-Planck-Institut für Kernphysik, Heidelberg, Germany (GRID:grid.419604.e) (ISNI:0000 0001 2288 6103) 
18  Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Institut für Physik, Berlin, Germany (GRID:grid.7468.d) (ISNI:0000 0001 2248 7639) 
19  University of Münster, Institute for Nuclear Physics, Münster, Germany (GRID:grid.5949.1) (ISNI:0000 0001 2172 9288); Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Institute of Experimental Particle Physics (ETP), Karlsruhe, Germany (GRID:grid.7892.4) (ISNI:0000 0001 0075 5874) 
20  University of Heidelberg, Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics, Heidelberg, Germany (GRID:grid.7700.0) (ISNI:0000 0001 2190 4373) 
21  Institute for Technical Physics (ITEP), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Germany (GRID:grid.7892.4) (ISNI:0000 0001 0075 5874); Max-Planck-Institut für Physik, Munich, Germany (GRID:grid.435824.c) (ISNI:0000 0001 2375 0603) 
22  University of North Carolina, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Chapel Hill, USA (GRID:grid.10698.36) (ISNI:0000 0001 2248 3208); Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory, Durham, USA (GRID:grid.440684.a); Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, USA (GRID:grid.135519.a) (ISNI:0000 0004 0446 2659) 
Pages
763
Publication year
2023
Publication date
Aug 2023
Publisher
Springer Nature B.V.
ISSN
14346044
e-ISSN
14346052
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-023-11818-y
ProQuest document ID
2858499787
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2023. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.