Sensitivity of Next-Generation Tritium Beta-Decay Experiments for
  keV-Scale Sterile Neutrinos
  We investigate the sensitivity of tritium $\beta$-decay experiments for
keV-scale sterile neutrinos. Relic sterile neutrinos in the keV mass range can
contribute both to the cold and warm dark matter content of the universe. This
work shows that a large-scale tritium beta-decay experiment, similar to the
KATRIN experiment that is under construction, can reach a statistical
sensitivity of the active-sterile neutrino mixing of $\sin^2\theta \sim
10^{-8}$. The effect of uncertainties in the known theoretical corrections to
the tritium $\beta$-decay spectrum were investigated, and found not to affect
the sensitivity significantly. It is demonstrated that controlling uncorrelated
systematic effects will be one of the main challenges in such an experiment.
