Description
The KATRIN experiment aims to determine the effective neutrino mass using the kinematics of electrons from the tritium $\beta$-decay. The integral energy spectrum of the electrons is measured by an electro-static high-pass filter, using the MAC-E filter principle (Magnetic Adiabatic Collimation and Electrostatic filter). Only electrons with energies above the retarding potential of the filter are counted at the detector at the end of the MAC-E spectrometer.
In order to give students the opportunity to learn more about the experimental principles behind KATRIN, a smaller version of the MAC-E filter setup, called Mini MAC-E, has been built, which will be used in the advanced physics lab course at KIT. With a scale of approximately 1:20 the Mini MAC-E experiment includes all the major components of KATRIN: a tritium source, the spectrometer with adjustable high voltage, a high resolution detector and the magnetic guiding field. Other than KATRIN, the source uses two implanted disks with tritium and $^{83m}Kr$ that can be exchanged inside the ultra-high vacuum source chamber. This poster shows the design of the physics lab setup and reports on first results. This project has been supported by RIRO (Research Infrastructure in Research-Oriented teaching), which is part of the ExU project at KIT.
