Statistical sensitivity of 163-Ho electron capture neutrino mass experiments

Abstract: Large calorimetric neutrino mass experiments using thermal detectors are possibly going to play a crucial role in the challenge for assessing the neutrino mass. This paper describe a tool based on Monte Carlo methods which has been developed to estimate the statistical sensitivity of calorimetric neutrino mass experiments using the 163-Ho electron capture decay. The tool is applied to investigate the effect of various experimental parameters and the results useful for designing an experiment with sub-eV sensitivity are given.