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arXiv · 2611.03972

Hydrogen Electron Cyclotron Resonance Dissociator Demonstrator for the Project 8 Experiment

Manjinder Oueslati·Walter Pettus·Anna Reine·Hamish Robertson
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Abstract

Project 8, a neutrino mass experiment, employs the novel frequency technique of cyclotron radiation emission spectroscopy (CRES) to perform a model independent measurement of neutrino mass via tritium beta decay. Our pioneering experiment will consist of a beamline that dissociates molecular tritium, surface cools atoms through accommodation, evaporatively cools and slows atoms, and traps them in a CRES resonant cavity to advance towards our sensitivity goal of 40 meV/c^2 for our final electron-weighted neutrino mass measurement. We are prototyping an electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) dissociator that uses a tunable 1 kW 2.45 GHz RF generator and electromagnets to ignite a hydrogen plasma in an aluminum resonant cavity. Our ECR source is designed to produce a high atom flux (~10^19 atoms/second) near room temperature. We present the engineering development, gas diagnostics, and spectroscopy data from our hydrogen plasma.

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Manjinder Oueslati, Walter Pettus, Anna Reine, Hamish Robertson. 2026-11-02. Hydrogen Electron Cyclotron Resonance Dissociator Demonstrator for the Project 8 Experiment. https://arxiv.org/abs/2611.03972

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