Resonant Cavity Characterization for Cyclotron Radiation Emission Spectroscopy

The Project 8 experiment will use precision kinematic measurements of the beta decay of tritium to probe the absolute neutrino mass scale using a technique called cyclotron radiation emission spectroscopy (CRES). Previous phases of Project 8 have demonstrated CRES in a waveguide, but future phases of the experiment plan to scale up this technique to larger volumes using resonant cavities. Towards this, characterization of CRES-like signals in resonant cavities is needed. A benchtop resonant cavity at PNNL has been setup to test signal reconstruction techniques at GHz frequencies. An update on this cavity and its characterization will be presented.