A novel detector system for KATRIN to search for keV-scale sterile neutrinos

Sterile neutrinos appear in minimal extensions of the Standard Model of particle physics. If their mass is in the keV regime, they are viable dark matter candidates. One way to search for sterile neutrinos in a laboratory-based experiment is via the analysis of beta-decay spectra, where the new neutrino mass eigenstate would manifest itself as a kink-like distortion of the beta-decay spectrum. The objective of the TRISTAN project is to extend the KATRIN setup with a new multi-pixel silicon drift detector system to search for a keV-scale sterile neutrino signal. In this paper we describe the requirements of such a new detector, and present first characterization measurement results obtained with a 7 pixel prototype system.