Neutrinos are lighter than 0.8 electronvolts: Experiment limits neutrino mass with unprecedented precision

The international KArlsruhe TRItium Neutrino Experiment (KATRIN), located at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), has broken an important barrier in neutrino physics that is relevant for both particle physics and cosmology. Based on data published in the journal Nature Physics, a new upper limit of 0.8 electronvolt (eV) for the mass of the neutrino has been obtained. This first push into the sub-eV mass scale of neutrinos by a model-independent laboratory method allows KATRIN to constrain the mass of these “lightweights of the universe” with unprecedented precision.