Direct Neutrino Mass measurements

Neutrino oscillation experiments have shown that neutrino are massive particles, but they are not able to determine the absolute neutrino mass scale. The experiments dedicated to effective electron-neutrino mass determination are the ones based on kinematic analyses of electrons emitted in single β-decay as 3H and 187Re. Nowadays the electrostatic spectrometers and microcalorimeters, two complementary techniques, are the most sensitive detection principles. Two experiments, KATRIN and MARE, are currently being prepared to explore neutrino masses down to 0.2 eV. The KATRIN experiment, which combines an ultra-luminous windowless gaseous tritium source with a high resolution electrostatic spectrometer, will provide high precision in β-studies never achieved before. The MARE project aims at the direct and calorimetric measurement of the electron neutrino mass with sub-eV sensitivity. Although the baseline of the MARE project consists in a large array of rhenium based thermal detectors, a different option for the isotope is also being considered. This contribution gives an outlook for both experiments. © 2011 Elsevier B.V.