The neutrino mass experiment KATRIN requires a stability of 3 ppm for the retarding potential at − 18.6 kV of the main spectrometer. To monitor the stability, two custom-made ultra-precise...

The Karlsruhe Tritium Neutrino (KATRIN) experiment aims at measuring the effective electron neutrino mass with a sensitivity of 0.2 eV/c², i.e., improving on previous measurements by an order of magnitude. Neutrino mass data taking with KATRIN commenced in early 2019, and after only a few weeks of data recording, analysis of these data showed the success of KATRIN, improving on the known neutrino mass limit by a factor of about two. This success very much could be ascribed to the fact that most of the system components met, or even surpassed, the required specifications during long-term operation. Here, we report on the performance of the laser Raman (LARA) monitoring system which provides continuous high-precision information on the gas composition injected into the experiment’s windowless gaseous tritium source (WGTS), specifically on its isotopic purity of tritium—one of the key parameters required in the derivation of the electron neutrino mass. The concentrations c_x for all six hydrogen isotopologues were monitored simultaneously, with a measurement precision for individual components of the order 10⁻³ or better throughout the complete KATRIN data taking campaigns to date. From these, the tritium purity, ε_T, is derived with precision of <10⁻³ and trueness of <3 × 10⁻³, being within and surpassing the actual requirements for KATRIN, respectively.

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 β-electrons from the source to the detector within a magnetic flux of 191 Tcm². 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.

Highly accurate, quantitative analyses of mixtures of hydrogen isotopologues—both the stable species, H₂, D₂, and HD, and the radioactive species, T₂, HT, and DT—are of great importance in fields as diverse as deuterium–tritium fusion, neutrino mass measurements using tritium β-decay, or for photonuclear experiments in which hydrogen–deuterium targets are used. In this publication we describe a production, handling, and analysis facility capable of fabricating well-defined gas samples, which may contain any of the stable and radioactive hydrogen isotopologues, with sub-percent accuracy for the relative species concentrations. The production is based on precise manometric gas mixing of H₂, D₂, and T₂. The heteronuclear isotopologues HD, HT, and DT are generated via controlled, in-line catalytic reaction or by β-induced self-equilibration, respectively. The analysis was carried out using an in-line intensity- and wavelength-calibrated Raman spectroscopy system. This allows for continuous monitoring of the composition of the circulating gas during the self-equilibration or catalytic evolution phases. During all procedures, effects, such as exchange reactions with wall materials, were considered with care. Together with measurement statistics, these and other systematic effects were included in the determination of composition uncertainties of the generated reference gas samples. Measurement and calibration accuracy at the level of 1% was achieved.