News & Events

Official inauguration of the KATRIN experiment at KIT

Today, June 11 2018 the KATRIN experiment has been inaugurated at 11.46 a.m. at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT).

The KATRIN collaboration started commissioning four weeks ago on May 18 2018, making the first tritium injection, and today it has been finally inaugurated, marking the start of the data taking with the aim of measuring the absolute mass of the neutrinos or set the lowest upper bound with an unprecedented sensitivity of 0.2 eV.

During the ceremony, the two Nobel Laureates Takaaki Kajita and Arthur McDonald gave lectures on "Atmospheric Neutrinos and their Oscillations" and "Flavor Change for Solar Neutrinos" respectively, and later the professors R.G.H. Robertson, C. Weinheimer and G. Drexlin laid out the history of the KATRIN experiment from its inception up to now, and prospects for the future.

After the ceremony all the participants are invited to a barbecue to celebrate this important and beautiful event.

Text by Álvaro Hernández-Cabezudo