KATRIN: The Future of Tritium Beta Decay Experiments

With the compelling evidence for massive neutrinos from recent neutrinooscillation experiments, one of the most fundamental tasks of particle physics over the next years will be the determination of the absolute mass scale of neutrinos. The case for a next generation tritium beta decay experiment to perform a high precision direct measurement of the absolute mass of the electron neutrino with sub-eV sensitivity is presented. The experimental requirements and technical challenges of the proposed Karlsruhe Tritium Neutrino experiment (KATRIN) [1] are discussed and its physics is potential outlined.