KATRIN like MINI MAC-E Filter with a tritium source for the advanced physics lab course

The KATRIN experiment at the Karlsruhe Intitute of Technology (KIT) aims to determine the effective neutrino mass using the kinematics of electrons from the tritium β-decay. The integral energy spectrum of the electrons is measured by an electro-static high-pass filter, using the MAC-E filter principle (Magnetic Adiabatic Collimation and Energy filter). Only electrons with energies above the retarding potential of the filter are counted at the detector at the end of the MAC-E spectrometer. In order to give students the opportunity to learn more about the experimental principles behind KATRIN, a smaller version of the MAC-E filter setup, called MiniMACE, has been built, which will be used in the advanced physics lab course at KIT. With a scale of approximately 1:20 the MiniMACE experiment includes all the major components of KATRIN: a tritium source, the spectrometer with adjustable high voltage, a high resolution detector and the magnetic guiding field. Other than KATRIN, the source uses two implanted disks with tritium and 83mKr that can be exchanged inside the ultra-high vacuum source chamber. This poster shows the design of the physics lab setup and reports on first results. ... mehrThis project has been supported by RIRO (Research Infrastructure in Research-Oriented teaching), which is part of the ExU project at KIT.