The Project 8 neutrino mass experiment: First tritium results and future prospects

The Project 8 collaboration aims for a direct measurement of the absolute neutrino mass scale from the distortion of the tritium decay spectrum near the endpoint. To this end, the collaboration has successfully established Cyclotron Radiation Emission Spectroscopy (CRES), a frequency-based approach for measuring differential beta decay spectra. By taking advantage of the CRES technique in combination with the use of atomic tritium as a source gas, Project 8 intends to overcome the statistical and systematic limitations of current-generation direct neutrino mass measurement methods and achieve a final sensitivity of 40 meV. To meet this goal, the collaboration has divided the development of the experiment into four phases with Phase II data collection completed in 2020. In this contribution I will report on the status and prospects of the Project 8 experiment, presenting the results of the first tritium spectrum recorded with the Phase II CRES prototype setup. This work is supported by the US DOE Office of Nuclear Physics, the US NSF, the PRISMA+ Cluster of Excellence at the University of Mainz, and internal investments at all institutions.