High-voltage monitoring with a solenoid retarding spectrometer at the KATRIN experiment

The KATRIN experiment will measure the absolute mass scale of neutrinos with a sensitivity of m(ν) = 200meV/c(2) by means of an electrostatic spectrometer set close to the tritium β-decay endpoint at 18.6keV. Fluctuations of the energy scale must be under control within ±60mV (±3ppm). Since a precise voltage measurement in the range of tens of kV is on the edge of current technology, a nuclear standard will be deployed additionally. Parallel to the main spectrometer the same retarding potential will be applied to the monitor spectrometer to measure 17.8-keV K-conversion electrons of (83m)Kr. This article describes the setup of the monitor spectrometer and presents its first measurement resu…