0000000000659075
AUTHOR
B. Degen
The status of the Mainz neutrino mass experiment
Abstract The present status of the Mainz tritium β decay experiments is given. The very recent improvement of the Mainz setup and the first tritium data are presented.
A new upper limit of the electron anti neutrino rest mass from tritium β-decay
Abstract A new upper limit of the electron anti neutrino rest mass has been deduced from the tritium β-decay spectrum. A source of molecular tritium has been investigated with a new solenoid retarding spectrometer. The results are m ν ϵ 2 = −38.8 ± 34.1 stat ± 15.1 syst (eV) 2 /c 4 from which we conclude m ν ϵ ≤ 7.2 eV/c 2 with 95% c.l. Our β-endpoint corresponds to a 3H-3He atomic mass difference of Δm( 3 H- 3 He) = 18590.8 ± 3 eV/c 2 (1σ) .
Improved limit on the electron-antineutrino rest mass from tritium ß-decay
Abstract The endpoint region of the β-spectrum of tritium was remeasured by an electrostatic spectrometer with magnetic guiding field. It enabled the search for a rest mass of the electron-antineutrino with improved precision. The result is m2v=−39±34stat±15syst(eV/c2)2, from which an upper limit of mv m( T )−m( 3 He )=18 591±3 eV /c 2 .
A high resolution electrostatic time-of-flight spectrometer with adiabatic magnetic collimation
Abstract A new type of spectrometer for low energy charged particles is presented. It consists of an adiabatic magnetic collimation and two filters: an electrostatic retarding potential to set a lower limit (high pass) and a time-of-flight analysis to reject high energy charged particles (low pass). Both filters are only limited in their resolution by the efficiency of the adiabatic magnetic collimation. The proof of this principle is demonstrated by a pilot measurement on the K conversion line of 83mKr. Possible applications to pulsed and continuous electron sources are discussed with the emphasis on the investigation of the β spectrum of T2 to deduce information on the mass of the electro…
Precision measurement of the conversion electron spectrum of 83mKr with a solenoid retarding spectrometer
This paper reports on precision measurements of conversion lines in the decay of 83mKr with nuclear transition energies of 32.1 keV and 9.4 keV, respectively. The spectra were taken from a submonolayer surface of 83mKr frozen onto a cold backing, using the new Mainz solenoid retarding spectrometer. The high luminosity and resolution of this instrument enables the observation of all allowed conversion lines up to the N-shell and to fully separate the elastic component from inelastic satellites. The combined analysis of the data yields the transition energies Ey=32151.5±1.1 eV and 9405.9±0.8 eV, respectively. The experiment served also to pilot the application of this spectrometer to the ques…
A solenoid retarding spectrometer with high resolution and transmission for keV electrons
Abstract We have built an electrostatic electron spectrometer combining both high resolution and large luminosity. The instrument consists essentially of two superconducting solenoids separated by a system of ring electrodes of 4 m in length. Source and detector are placed in the high-field regions of the superconducting solenoids, whereas the repellent analyzing electrostatic potential of the ring electrodes peaks at the minimum of the magnetic field in between these solenoids. The magnetic guiding field provides (i) the acceptance of the full foreward solid angle of 2π, (ii) the transformation of the transverse cyclotron motion into longitudinal motion parallel to the magnetic field. The …