Sensitivity studies for a next-generation neutrino-mass experiment using tritium β-decay

Taking next steps in enhancing the sensitivity, for instance towards the regime of inverted mass ordering, requires novel technological approaches to significantly improve statistics, energy resolution, and background suppression. We explore two key strategies: (1)implementing a differential detector with sub-eV energy resolution (quantum sensor detector array, time-of-flight measurement) to resolve each electron’s energy individually while covering the entire energy interval of interest simultaneously and (2)exploring a large-volume atomic tritium source. In this presentation, we introduce the conceptual framework for simulations to investigate the requirements by technology and limits by physics to confine the achievable sensitivity on the neutrino mass with a differential measurement. This work is supported by the Helmholtz Association, the Ministry for Education and Research BMBF (05A17PM3, 05A17PX3, 05A17VK2, and 05A17WO3), the Helmholtz Alliance for Astroparticle Physics (HAP), and the Helmholtz Initiative and Networking Fund (W2/W3-118).