CRYOGENIC DESIGN OF THE KATRIN SOURCE CRYOSTAT

Le résumé fourni par la source

The KATRIN experiment will measure the mass of electron antineutrinos with a sensitivity of 0.2 eV/c2 by the precise measurement of the tritium β spectrum. A key component is the Windowless Gaseous Tritium Source (WGTS), which will deliver 1011 β decay electrons per second. The WGTS consists in its centre of a 10 m long beam tube operated at 30 K, which is surrounded by a series of superconducting solenoids. Molecular tritium is injected through a central injection chamber and pumped at either beam tube end. The tritium density profile must have a stability of 10−3 to limit systematic errors, yielding stringent requirements on the beam tube temperature homogeneity (±30 mK) and stability (±30 mK/h). This shall be achieved with a design, where the thermal radiation heat from the vacuum pumps is almost entirely absorbed by LN2 and He coolers on the pump ports, while the beam tube temperature is stabilized with saturated Ne in a thermosiphon. Starting from a functional description, we explain the cryogenic design of the magnet cryostat featuring 13 separate fluid circuits with 6 cryogenic fluids. Besides magnet cooling, we focus on the beam tube cooling and present the preparations for a full-scale demonstrator test.

Ce résumé expose les affirmations des auteurs. BNTIC ne l’interprète pas comme une validation indépendante des résultats.