KATRIN Background Characterization

The Karlsruhe Tritium Neutrino (KATRIN) Experiment is designed to determine the effective electron anti-neutrino mass in a model-independent way with a sensitivity of mν _{\nu} = 0.2 eV/c2 ^{2} . For reaching this sensitivity a very low background level is required. One approach to characterize the residual background in KATRIN is by determining its energy spectrum. This information enables to verify the current background model, which predicts low energy electrons originating from highly excited atoms as a potential background source. In this contribution two dedicated measurement methods and first simulation results will be presented.