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The paper describes methods and presents results of the Troitsk Nu-mass experiment spectrometer cleanup, which inner volume (40 m3) and surfaces (160 m2) was contaminated by 4.4 GBq of tritium. The Troitsk Nu-mass experiment of Institute for Nuclear Research of Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, is designed to measure the spectrum of electrons from tritium decays in order to search for hypothetical particles - sterile neutrinos. As a result of equipment failure, the spectrometer internal volume was contaminated with tritium. The contamination made measurements impossible and the research program stopped. The methods of vacuum extraction, hydrogen soaks, and water vapour soaks were used for cleanup. As a result of detritiation, the background level of the main detector of the Troitsk Nu-mass spectrometer decreased by more than 10 times, which made it possible to resume work. The results are consistent with the data obtained earlier for volumes in normal conditions in the air and can be used for planning work on detritiation of similar installations., Comment: 18 pages, 7 figures, 3 tables, acknowledgment added

We present the first measurements of tritium beta-decay spectrum in the electron energy range 16-18.6 keV. The goal is to find distortions which may correspond to the presence of a heavy sterile neutrinos. A possible contribution of this kind would manifest itself as a kink in the spectrum with a similar shape but with end point shifted by the value of a heavy neutrino mass. We set a new upper limits to the neutrino mixing matrix element U^2_{e4} which improve existing limits by a factor from 2 to 5 in the mass range 0.1-2 keV., Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication version

We've performed precise measurements of electron scattering on molecular hydrogen and deuterium by using the "Troitsk nu-mass" setup. Electrons were generated by the electron gun with an energy line width better than 0.3 eV. The electron energies were 14, 17, 18.7, 19 and 25 keV. The windowless gaseous tritium source (WGTS) was filled by hydrogen isotopes and served as a target. The total column density was adjusted to form a length of 0.35--0.7 of the electron mean free path. The integral spectrum of scattered electrons was measured by the electrostatic spectrometer with a magnetic adiabatic collimation and relative energy resolution 8.3 10^{-5}. As a result, the shapes of molecular excitation and ionization spectra were extracted for both isotopes. We did not find any difference between hydrogen and deuterium targets. The relative energy dependence was extracted too., Comment: 14 pages, 10 figures

We propose a new experiment to search for a sterile neutrino in a few keV mass range at the "Troitsk nu-mass" facility. The expected signature corresponds to a kink in the electron energy spectrum in tritium beta-decay. The new goal compared to our previous experiment will be precision spectrum measurements well below end point. The experimental installation consists of a windowless gaseous tritium source and a high resolution electromagnetic spectrometer. We estimate that the current bounds on the sterile neutrino mixing parameter can be improved by an order of magnitude in the mass range under 5 keV without major upgrade of the existing equipment. Upgrades of calibration, data acquisition and high voltage systems will allow to improve the bounds by another order of magnitude., Comment: 19 pages, 11 figures

In this paper we present the details of our previously published results for a search for an additional neutrino mass state in $\beta$-electron spectrum from the Troitsk nu-mass experiment. Here we present steps of the analysis, show a set of likelihood functions obtained for each additional heavy mass value. We demonstrate how systematic errors were estimated. We also compare our results with those published recently for a similar analysis for Mainz data and try to explain why there is a factor of 2-3 difference in the sensitivity for an additional heavy mass., Comment: The final published version, 13 pages, 16 figures

We performed a search for any sign of an additional neutrino mass state in beta-electron spectrum based on data reanalysis of direct electron antineutrino mass measurements in Tritium beta-decay in the Troitsk nu-mass experiment. The existing data set allows us to search for such a state in the mass range up to 100 eV. The lowest value at a 95% C.L. upper limit for the contribution of a heavy eigenstate into electron neutrino is around or less than 1% for masses above 20 eV., Comment: One recent reference added, 3 pages, 1 figure

An electron antineutrino mass has been measured in tritium beta-decay in the "Troitsk nu-mass" experiment. The setup consists of a windowless gaseous tritium source and an electrostatic electron spectrometer. The whole data set acquired from 1994 to 2004 was reanalysed. A thorough selection of data with the reliable experimental conditions has been performed. We checked every known systematic effect and got the following experimental estimate for neutrino mass squared m_{nu}^{2}=-0.67+/- 2.53 {eV}^{2}. This gives an experimental upper sensitivity limit of m_{nu}<2.2 eV and upper limit estimates m_{nu}<2.12 eV, 95% C.L. for Bayesian statistics and m_{nu}<2.05 eV, 95% C.L. for the Feldman and Cousins approach., Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures and 1 table