Sterile Neutrino Dark Matter Searches with the KATRIN Experiment

Sterile neutrinos are a natural extension of the Standard Model of particle physics. If their mass is in the keV range, they are a viable dark matter candidate. One way to search for sterile neutrinos in a laboratory-based experiment is via tritium beta-decay. A sterile neutrino with a mass of up to 18.6 keV would manifest itself in the electron energy spectrum as a spectral distortion with a kink-like feature. The objective of the TRISTAN project is to extend the KATRIN experiment with a novel multi-pixel silicon drift detector and readout system to search for a keV-scale sterile neutrino signal. This manuscript gives an overview on the current status of the project with an emphasis on the detector performance.