Towards Atomic Tritium in Project 8

Rotational and vibrational excitations of molecular tritium (T₂) perturb the beta spectrum endpoint, which limits neutrino mass sensitivity in T₂-based experiments to about 100 meV. Atomic tritium opens a path for Project 8 to reach a neutrino mass sensitivity goal of 40 meV. To that end, the collaboration is developing techniques needed to produce, cool, and trap atomic tritium in a way that is compatible with Cyclotron Radiation Emission Spectroscopy. These efforts include a hardware testbed for characterizing the beam from a custom-designed, coaxial-current hydrogen atom source. The scope of the testbed will include magnetic focusing and cooling of the beam, for eventual integration with an atomic hydrogen-trapping demonstrator. Here, progress is presented on the construction and commissioning of the atom source and hardware testbed.