The KATRIN Superconducting Magnets: Overview and First Performance Results

Abstract

The KATRIN experiment aims for the determination of the effective electron anti-neutrino mass from the tritium beta-decay with an unprecedented sub-eV sensitivity. The strong magnetic fields, designed for up to 6~T, adiabatically guide $\beta$-electrons from the source to the detector within a magnetic flux of 191~Tcm${}^2$. A chain of ten single solenoid magnets and two larger superconducting magnet systems have been designed, constructed, and installed in the 70-m-long KATRIN beam line. The beam diameter for the magnetic flux varies from 0.064~m to 9~m, depending on the magnetic flux density along the beam line. Two transport and tritium pumping sections are assembled with chicane beam tubes to avoid direct "line-of-sight" molecular beaming effect of gaseous tritium molecules into the next beam sections. The sophisticated beam alignment has been successfully cross-checked by electron sources. In addition, magnet safety systems were developed to protect the complex magnet systems against coil quenches or other system failures. The main functionality of the magnet safety systems has been successfully tested with the two large magnet systems. The complete chain of the magnets was operated for several weeks at 70$\%$ of the design fields for the first test measurements with radioactive krypton gas. The stability of the magnetic fields of the source magnets has been shown to be better than 0.01$\%$ per month at 70$\%$ of the design fields. This paper gives an overview of the KATRIN superconducting magnets and reports on the first performance results of the magnets.

References in corpus (13)

• Final Results from phase II of the Mainz Neutrino Mass Search in Tritium $\beta$ Decay
• An upper limit on electron antineutrino mass from Troitsk experiment
• Current Direct Neutrino Mass Experiments
• Focal-plane detector system for the KATRIN experiment
• Precision high voltage divider for the KATRIN experiment
• Kassiopeia: A Modern, Extensible C++ Particle Tracking Package
• A broad-Band FT-ICR Penning TRap System for KATRIN
• Commissioning of the vacuum system of the KATRIN Main Spectrometer
• First transmission of electrons and ions through the KATRIN beamline
• Next generation KATRIN high precision voltage divider for voltages up to 65kV
• A pulsed, mono-energetic and angular-selective UV photo-electron source for the commissioning of the KATRIN experiment
• Technical design and commissioning of the KATRIN large-volume air coil system
• A mobile Magnetic Sensor Unit for the KATRIN Main Spectrometer

Cited by in corpus (14)

• An improved upper limit on the neutrino mass from a direct kinematic method by KATRIN
• The Design, Construction, and Commissioning of the KATRIN Experiment
• Analysis methods for the first KATRIN neutrino-mass measurement
• Improved eV-scale Sterile-Neutrino Constraints from the Second KATRIN Measurement Campaign
• Bound on 3+1 active-sterile neutrino mixing from the first four-week science run of KATRIN
• $\beta$-Decay Spectrum, Response Function and Statistical Model for Neutrino Mass Measurements with the KATRIN Experiment
• First operation of the KATRIN experiment with tritium
• Gamma-induced background in the KATRIN main spectrometer
• Muon-induced background in the KATRIN main spectrometer
• Search for Lorentz-Invariance Violation with the first KATRIN data
• Reduction of stored-particle background by a magnetic pulse method at the KATRIN experiment
• The KATRIN Neutrino Mass Measurement: Experiment, Status, and Outlook
• Monte Carlo simulations of the electron-gas interactions in the KATRIN experiment
• New Constraint on the Local Relic Neutrino Background Overdensity with the First KATRIN Data Runs