Ultra-stable implanted 83Rb/83mKr electron sources for the energy scale monitoring in the KATRIN experiment

Abstract

The KATRIN experiment aims at the direct model-independent determination of the average electron neutrino mass via the measurement of the endpoint region of the tritium beta decay spectrum. The electron spectrometer of the MAC-E filter type is used, requiring very high stability of the electric filtering potential. This work proves the feasibility of implanted 83Rb/83mKr calibration electron sources which will be utilised in the additional monitor spectrometer sharing the high voltage with the main spectrometer of KATRIN. The source employs conversion electrons of 83mKr which is continuously generated by 83Rb. The K-32 conversion line (kinetic energy of 17.8 keV, natural line width of 2.7 eV) is shown to fulfill the KATRIN requirement of the relative energy stability of +/-1.6 ppm/month. The sources will serve as a standard tool for continuous monitoring of KATRIN's energy scale stability with sub-ppm precision. They may also be used in other applications where the precise conversion lines can be separated from the low energy spectrum caused by the electron inelastic scattering in the substrate.

30 pages, 10 figures, 1 table, minor revision of the preprint, accepted by JINST on 5.2.2013

References in corpus (4)

• Precision high voltage divider for the KATRIN experiment
• Calibration of the ISOLDE acceleration voltage using a high-precision voltage divider and applying collinear fast beam laser spectroscopy
• The KATRIN Pre-Spectrometer at reduced Filter Energy
• Long term stability of the energy of conversion electrons emitted from solid 83Rb/83mKr source

Cited by in corpus (11)

• The Design, Construction, and Commissioning of the KATRIN Experiment
• First transmission of electrons and ions through the KATRIN beamline
• Neutrino Masses
• Constraints on the Active and Sterile Neutrino Masses from Beta-Ray Spectra: Past, Present and Future
• A novel ${}^{83\mathrm{m}}$Kr tracer method for characterizing xenon gas and cryogenic distillation systems
• Search for environmental effects on the KLL Auger spectrum of rubidium generated in radioactive decay
• ${}^{83}\mathrm{Rb}$/${}^{83m}\mathrm{Kr}$ production and cross-section measurement with 3.4 MeV and 20 MeV proton beams
• Influence of host matrices on krypton electron binding energies and KLL Auger transition energies
• The KLM+KLN Auger electron spectrum of rubidium in different matrices
• Calibration of liquid argon detector with ${}^{83m}Kr$ and ${}^{22}Na$ in different drift field
• Development of a ${}^{83\mathrm{m}}$Kr source for the calibration of the CENNS-10 Liquid Argon Detector