A Lab-Scale Experiment for keV Sterile Neutrino Search

Abstract

AbstractWe developed a simple small-scale experiment to measure the beta decay spectrum of$$^{3}$$3H. The aim of this research is to investigate the presence of sterile neutrinos in the keV region. Tritium nuclei were embedded in a 1$$\times$$×1$$\times$$×1 cm$$^3$$3LiF crystal from the$$^6$$6Li(n,$$\alpha$$α)$$^3$$3H reaction. The energy of the beta electrons absorbed in the LiF crystal was measured with a magnetic microcalorimeter at 40 mK. We report a new method of sample preparation, experiments, and analysis of$$^3$$3H beta measurements. The spectrum of a 10-hour measurement agrees well with the expected spectrum of$$^3$$3H beta decay. The analysis results indicate that this method can be used to search for keV-scale sterile neutrinos.