The KArlsruhe TRItium Neutrino (KATRIN) experiment, which aims to make a direct and model-independent determination of the absolute neutrino mass scale, is a complex experiment with many components. More than 15 years ago, we published a technical design report (TDR) [1] to describe the hardware design and requirements to achieve our sensitivity goal of 0.2 eV at 90% C.L. on the neutrino mass. Since then there has been considerable progress, culminating in the publication of first neutrino mass results with the entire beamline operating [2]. In this paper, we document the current state of all completed beamline components (as of the first neutrino mass measurement campaign), demonstrate our ability to reliably and stably control them over long times, and present details on their respective commissioning campaigns.

The beta decay of tritium in the form of molecular T_{2} is the basis of sensitive experiments to measure neutrino mass. The final-state electronic, vibrational, and rotational excitations modify the beta spectrum significantly and are obtained from theory. We report measurements of the branching ratios to specific ionization states for the isotopolog HT. Two earlier, concordant measurements gave branching ratios of HT to the bound HHe^{+} ion of 89.5% and 93.2%, in sharp disagreement with the theoretical prediction of 55%-57%, raising concerns about the theory's reliability in neutrino mass experiments. Our result, 56.5(6)%, is compatible with the theoretical expectation and disagrees strongly with the previous measurements.

A single calorimeter station for the Muon $g-2$ experiment at Fermilab includes the following subsystems: a 54-element array of PbF$_{2}$ Cherenkov crystals read out by large-area SiPMs, bias and slow-control electronics, a suite of 800 MSPS waveform digitizers, a clock and control distribution network, a gain calibration and monitoring system, and a GPU-based frontend read out through a MIDAS data acquisition environment. The entire system performance was evaluated using 2.5 - 5 GeV electrons at the End Station Test Beam at SLAC. This paper includes a description of the individual subsystems and the results of measurements of the energy response and resolution, energy-scale stability, timing resolution, and spatial uniformity. All measured performances meet or exceed the $g-2$ experimental requirements. Based on the success of the tests, the complete production of the required 24 calorimeter stations has been made and installation into the main experiment is complete. Furthermore, the calorimeter response measurements determined here informed the design of the reconstruction algorithms that are now employed in the running $g-2$ experiment.

We have developed a custom amplifier board coupled to a large-format 16-channel Hamamatsu silicon photomultiplier device for use as the light sensor for the electromagnetic calorimeters in the Muon g - 2 experiment at Fermilab. The calorimeter absorber is an array of lead-fluoride crystals, which produces short-duration Cherenkov light. The detector sits in the high magnetic field of the muon storage ring. The SiPMs selected, and their accompanying custom electronics, must preserve the short pulse shape, have high quantum efficiency, be non-magnetic, exhibit gain stability under varying rate conditions, and cover a fairly large fraction of the crystal exit surface area. We describe an optimized design that employs the new-generation of thru-silicon via devices. The performance is documented in a series of bench and beam tests.

The muon anomaly (g−2)μ/2 has been measured to 0.54 parts per million by E821 experiment at Brookhaven National Laboratory, and at present there is a 3–4 standard-deviation difference between the Standard Model prediction and the experimental value. A new muon g−2 experiment, E989, is being prepared at Fermilab that will improve the experimental error by a factor of four to clarify this difference. A central component to reach this fourfold improvement in accuracy is the high-precision laser calibration system which should monitor the gain fluctuations of the calorimeter photodetectors at 0.04% accuracy.

The electromagnetic calorimeter for the new muon (g−2) experiment at Fermilab will consist of arrays of PbF2 Cherenkov crystals read out by large-area silicon photo-multiplier (SiPM) sensors. We report here on measurements and simulations using 2.0–4.5 GeV electrons with a 28-element prototype array. All data were obtained using fast waveform digitizers to accurately capture signal pulse shapes vs. energy, impact position, angle, and crystal wrapping. The SiPMs were gain matched using a laser-based calibration system, which also provided a stabilization procedure that allowed gain correction to a level of 10−4 per hour. After accounting for longitudinal fluctuation losses, those crystals wrapped in a white, diffusive wrapping exhibited an energy resolution σ/E of (3.4±0.1)%/E/GeV, while those wrapped in a black, absorptive wrapping had (4.6±0.3)%/E/GeV. The white-wrapped crystals—having nearly twice the total light collection—display a generally wider and impact-position-dependent pulse shape owing to the dynamics of the light propagation, in comparison to the black-wrapped crystals, which have a narrower pulse shape that is insensitive to impact position.

Semiconductor detectors in general have a dead layer at their surfaces that is either a result of natural or induced passivation, or is formed during the process of making a contact. Charged particles passing through this region produce ionization that is incompletely collected and recorded, which leads to departures from the ideal in both energy deposition and resolution. The silicon p-i-n diode used in the KATRIN neutrino-mass experiment has such a dead layer. We have constructed a detailed Monte Carlo model for the passage of electrons from vacuum into a silicon detector, and compared the measured energy spectra to the predicted ones for a range of energies from 12 to 20 keV. The comparison provides experimental evidence that a substantial fraction of the ionization produced in the "dead" layer evidently escapes by diffusion, with 46% being collected in the depletion zone and the balance being neutralized at the contact or by bulk recombination. The most elementary model of a thinner dead layer from which no charge is collected is strongly disfavored. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The search for dark matter motivates development of a semiconductor detector system with a very low noise threshold. The CoGeNT and MAJORANA projects both make use of hyper-pure Ge detectors and are in principle sensitive to the ionization signals produced by dark matter particles scattering from Ge nuclei if sub-keV thresholds can be achieved. We describe progress toward mitigating noise on several fronts: the 1/f noise that is inherent in capacitors and may also be present in the depletion layer of pn junctions, and the aliasing noise that is endemic with FFTs taken digitally over a large frequency range. An operating front-end design with an ENC (equivalent noise charge) of 4.5 electrons RMS has been demonstrated.