Effective neutrino masses in KATRIN and future tritium beta-decay experiments

Abstract

Past and current direct neutrino mass experiments set limits on the so-called effective neutrino mass, which is an incoherent sum of neutrino masses and lepton mixing matrix elements. The electron energy spectrum which neglects the relativistic and nuclear recoil effects is often assumed. Alternative definitions of effective masses exist, and an exact relativistic spectrum is calculable. We quantitatively compare the validity of those different approximations as function of energy resolution and exposure in view of tritium beta decays in the KATRIN, Project 8, and PTOLEMY experiments. Furthermore, adopting the Bayesian approach, we present the posterior distributions of the effective neutrino mass by including current experimental information from neutrino oscillations, beta decay, neutrinoless double-beta decay, and cosmological observations. Both linear and logarithmic priors for the smallest neutrino mass are assumed.