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Toward a more accurate Q value measurement of tritium: status of THe-Trap

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Abstract

The goal of the THe-Trap experiment is to measure the tritium/helium-3 mass ratio in order to deduce the Q value of the tritium β-decay. A relative uncertainty of 10 parts per trillion in the mass ratio would allow determining the Q value with a precision of 30 meV. This value is of relevance for the Karlsruhe Tritium Neutrino (KATRIN) collaboration, which is building a spectrometer to measure the mass of the electron antineutrino. In this contribution, we present the progress made in the past 2 years. We can, e.g., store, manipulate and detect single ions. To demonstrate the current accuracy, we measured the carbon-12 to oxygen-16 mass ratio with a relative uncertainty of 120 parts per trillion in early 2013. The improvements, current status and future perspectives will be presented.

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Acknowledgments

This work was funded by the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft and the ERC-Grant Measurements of Fundamental Constants (MEFUCO). T.E. was supported by a fellowship of the Alexander von Humboldt foundation. S.S. acknowledges support by the Heidelberg Graduate School of Fundamental Physics (HGSFP). J.K. acknowledges support by the HGSFP and by the International Max Planck Research School for Precision Tests of Fundamental Symmetries (IMPRS-PTFS). We thank David B. Pinegar and Christoph Diehl for earlier contributions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics, Saupfercheckweg 1, 69117, Heidelberg, Germany

    S. Streubel, T. Eronen, M. Höcker, J. Ketter, M. Schuh & K. Blaum

  2. Physics Department, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, 98195, USA

    R. S. Van Dyck Jr.

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  1. S. Streubel
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  2. T. Eronen
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  3. M. Höcker
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  4. J. Ketter
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  5. M. Schuh
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  6. R. S. Van Dyck Jr.
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  7. K. Blaum
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Correspondence to S. Streubel.

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Streubel, S., Eronen, T., Höcker, M. et al. Toward a more accurate Q value measurement of tritium: status of THe-Trap. Appl. Phys. B 114, 137–145 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00340-013-5669-x

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