Workshop on "Determination of the Absolute Electron (Anti-)Neutrino Mass"

Search for Local Relic Neutrino Overdensities with the KATRIN experiment

Apr 13, 2026, 5:31 PM

2m

Gaede Foyer (KIT Campus South)

Poster Posters

Speaker

Alessandro Schwemmer (Max-Planck-Institut für Kernphysik)

Description

The cosmic neutrino background is one of the remaining predictions of Big Bang cosmology that has yet to be directly observed.
The Karlsruhe Tritium Neutrino (KATRIN) experiment, primarily designed to probe the effective electron anti-neutrino mass, performs a high-precision measurement of the tritium beta-decay spectrum near its kinematic endpoint.
This data also enables us to search for local relic neutrino overdensities by including the rate contribution from neutrino capture on tritium.
Assuming relic neutrinos behave as a fully degenerate Fermi gas significantly changes the capture spectrum at high overdensities.
Moreover, it impacts the tritium beta-decay spectrum via Pauli blocking.
In this work, we present the latest results from this updated model, including a comparison to the previous analysis published in PRL 129, 011806 (2022).