Sensitivity Studies on the Implementation of New Detector and Source Concepts at KATRIN

The Karlsruhe Tritium Neutrino experiment (KATRIN) is leading the direct kinematic neutrino mass measurement with an upper limit on the effective neutrino mass mν of 0.8 eV/c2 (90% CL) based on the initial two measurement campaigns, and a final sensitivity of below 0.3 eV/c2.
Making further steps towards an ultimate sensitivity to the neutrino mass below the level of 0.1 eV/c2 may require significant conceptual modifications in the future neutrino mass determination with KATRIN. In this talk we present sensitivity studies on the impact of a high-resolution electron detector for a neutrino mass measurement which implies the measurement of a differential electron spectrum in comparison to the present integral measurement. The use of atomic tritium is explored as a replacement for the current molecular source to avoid the limitation posed by molecular final states. The results presented in this talk show that with these modifications a KATRIN-like experiment can potentially reach the inverted hierarchy, and indicate what is necessary to increase even further in sensitivity.
This work is supported by the Helmholtz Association and by the Ministry for Education and Research BMBF (grant numbers 05A23PMA, 05A23PX2, 05A23VK2, and 05A23WO6)