Commissioning of the vacuum system of the KATRIN Main Spectrometer

Abstract

The KATRIN experiment will probe the neutrino mass by measuring the beta-electron energy spectrum near the endpoint of tritium beta-decay. An integral energy analysis will be performed by an electro-static spectrometer (Main Spectrometer), an ultra-high vacuum vessel with a length of 23.2 m, a volume of 1240 m^3, and a complex inner electrode system with about 120000 individual parts. The strong magnetic field that guides the beta-electrons is provided by super-conducting solenoids at both ends of the spectrometer. Its influence on turbo-molecular pumps and vacuum gauges had to be considered. A system consisting of 6 turbo-molecular pumps and 3 km of non-evaporable getter strips has been deployed and was tested during the commissioning of the spectrometer. In this paper the configuration, the commissioning with bake-out at 300°C, and the performance of this system are presented in detail. The vacuum system has to maintain a pressure in the 10^{-11} mbar range. It is demonstrated that the performance of the system is already close to these stringent functional requirements for the KATRIN experiment, which will start at the end of 2016.

arXiv commentsubmitted for publication in JINST, 39 pages, 15 figures

Cited by in corpus (16)

• An improved upper limit on the neutrino mass from a direct kinematic method by KATRIN
• Direct Measurements of Neutrino Mass
• The Design, Construction, and Commissioning of the KATRIN Experiment
• Analysis methods for the first KATRIN neutrino-mass measurement
• $\beta$-Decay Spectrum, Response Function and Statistical Model for Neutrino Mass Measurements with the KATRIN Experiment
• KATRIN: Status and Prospects for the Neutrino Mass and Beyond
• First transmission of electrons and ions through the KATRIN beamline
• The KATRIN Superconducting Magnets: Overview and First Performance Results
• Neutral tritium gas reduction in the KATRIN differential pumping sections
• Technical design and commissioning of the KATRIN large-volume air coil system
• Gamma-induced background in the KATRIN main spectrometer
• Muon-induced background in the KATRIN main spectrometer
• Suppression of Penning discharges between the KATRIN spectrometers
• Forward Beam Monitor for the KATRIN experiment
• Reduction of stored-particle background by a magnetic pulse method at the KATRIN experiment
• New Constraint on the Local Relic Neutrino Background Overdensity with the First KATRIN Data Runs