Konstantin Sukharnikov Scientific instrumentation

A hobby. An independent overview compiled from public sources by a science and space enthusiast. I am not involved in these missions or facilities; my own work is detector electronics at European XFEL. My projects →

Facility · Neutrinos

KATRIN (Karlsruhe Tritium Neutrino Experiment)

Direct measurement of the neutrino mass from the tritium beta-decay spectrum

Status
Data taking ended
Location
KIT, Karlsruhe, Germany
Operator
KATRIN Collaboration, KIT
Next
Final result from the full data set (expected)

Summary

A 70-metre experiment with a MAC-E electrostatic spectrometer. It measures the endpoint of the tritium beta spectrum and from it the mass of the electron antineutrino, independently of cosmology.

Now as of 4 Nov 2026

Data taking ended in October 2025: 1,000 days of measurements in 19 campaigns, more than six times the statistics of the previous data set. The final analysis is under way (KIT Indico, April 2026). The current result is m(ν) < 0.45 eV (90 % CL) from the first five campaigns, published in Science on 10 April 2025 (KATRIN).

Key dates

  1. 2019First result: < 1.1 eVdone
  2. 10 Apr 2025< 0.45 eV (Science)done
  3. Oct 2025Data taking endsdone
  4. 2026–2027Final resultexpected