Relativistic cyclotron radiation detection of tritium decay electrons as a new technique for measuring the neutrino mass
Relativistic cyclotron radiation detection of tritium decay electrons as a new technique for measuring the neutrino mass
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DOI：
10.1103/physrevd.80.051301
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发表时间：
2009-04
影响因子：
3.1
通讯作者：
B. Monreal;Joseph A. Formaggio University of California;Santa Barbara;M. I. O. Technology
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
B. Monreal;Joseph A. Formaggio University of California;Santa Barbara;M. I. O. Technology
β衰变能量分布的形状对电子中微子的质量很敏感。迄今为止，测量氚衰变终点形状的尝试没有看到零质量形式的失真，因此将m{sub {nu}}{sub {beta}}的上限设定为<2.3 eV。在这里，我们表明，一种新型的电子能谱可以改善未来的测量，从而中微子质量。我们建议探测磁场中高能电子发射的相干回旋辐射。对于轻度相对论性电子，例如氚衰变中的电子，回旋加速器频率的相对论性位移使我们能够从发射的辐射中提取电子能量。我们目前的能量分辨率，噪声限制，高速率的测量能力，并在这样的实验中预期的系统误差的计算。
The shape of the beta-decay energy distribution is sensitive to the mass of the electron neutrino. Attempts to measure the endpoint shape of tritium decay have so far seen no distortion from the zero-mass form, thus placing an upper limit of m{sub {nu}}{sub {beta}}<2.3 eV. Here, we show that a new type of electron energy spectroscopy could improve future measurements of this spectrum and therefore of the neutrino mass. We propose to detect the coherent cyclotron radiation emitted by an energetic electron in a magnetic field. For mildly relativistic electrons, like those in tritium decay, the relativistic shift of the cyclotron frequency allows us to extract the electron energy from the emitted radiation. We present calculations for the energy resolution, noise limits, high-rate measurement capability, and systematic errors expected in such an experiment.