Electron neutrino mass
“I worked on KATRIN from construction through commissioning as a graduate student, and into early data collection as a postdoc,” said Martin. “It has been a pleasure to build on the UNC group’s KATRIN DAQ efforts, driven by Mark Howe (now retired), and support the KATRIN experiment’s DAQ systems.” “The updated limits on the effective anti-electron neutrino mass from KATRIN’s second physics campaign are an exciting new result, an impressive demonstration of the capabilities of the KATRIN apparatus, and the outcome of resolute, coordinated efforts from the international collaboration,” said Caldwell. Research scientist Tom Caldwell was responsible for data acquisition during the experiment, and postdoctoral research associate Eric Martin also contributed.
“Determining this absolute neutrino-mass scale is vital to our understanding of fundamental interactions, cosmology, astrophysics and ultimately to answering the underlying question on the origin of particle masses.” Parker Distinguished Professor, director of the Institute for Cosmology, Subatomic Matter and Symmetries (CoSMS) and one of three UNC-Chapel Hill participants involved in the Karlsruhe Tritium Neutrino Experiment (KATRIN). “Neutrinos were long assumed to be massless until now,” said John Wilkerson, John R. Although their mass is tiny, the abundance of neutrinos contributes an important role in forming the universe as it appears today. The consequences of a massive neutrino are profound and may guide the development of an improved Standard Model of particle physics. The team has established a new upper limit of 0.8 eV/c2 for the mass of the neutrino - the lightest known particle - a milestone that will impact future discoveries in nuclear and particle physics and cosmology. 15 features a recent discovery made by an international research team that includes scientists from the College of Arts & Sciences’ physics and astronomy department. Carolina Next: Innovations for Public Good ↗Ī Nature Physics article published Feb.