Elena Aprile is an Italian-American experimental particle physicist. She has been a professor of physics at Columbia University since 1986. She is the founder and spokesperson of the XENON Dark Matter Experiment. Aprile is well known for her work with noble liquid detectors and for her contributions to particle astrophysics in the search for dark matter.[1][2]
Education and academic career
Aprile studied physics at the University of Naples and completed her masters thesis at CERN under the supervision of Professor Carlo Rubbia.[3] After receiving her Laurea degree in 1978, she enrolled at the University of Geneva, from which she received her Ph.D. in physics in 1982. She moved to Harvard University in 1983 as a postdoctoral researcher in Carlo Rubbia's group. Aprile joined the faculty of Columbia University in 1986,[3] attaining her full professorship in 2001. From 2003 to 2009, Aprile served as co-director of the Columbia Astrophysics Laboratory.
Research
Aprile is a specialist in noble liquid detectors and their application in particle physics and astrophysics.[4] She began working on liquid argon detectors as a graduate student at CERN, continuing her research as a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard. At Columbia she investigated the properties of noble liquids for radiation spectroscopy and imaging in astrophysics.[5] This work led to the realization of the first liquid xenon time projection chamber (LXeTPC) as a Compton telescope for MeV gamma rays.
From 1996 to 2001, Aprile was spokesperson of the NASA-sponsored Liquid Xenon Gamma-Ray Imaging Telescope (LXeGRIT) project, leading the first engineering test of the telescope in a near-space environment and subsequent science campaigns with long-duration balloon flights. LXeGRIT used a liquid xenon time projection chamber as a Compton telescope for imaging cosmic sources in the 0.15 to 10 MeV energy band. A total of about 36 hours of data were gathered from two long-duration flights in 1999 and 2000, at an average altitude of 39 km.[6][7][8]
Since 2001, Aprile's research focus shifted to particle astrophysics, specifically to direct detection of dark matter with liquid xenon.[9] Aprile is the founder and spokesperson of the XENON dark matter experiment, which aims to discover WIMPs as they scatter off xenon atoms in massive yet ultra-low background[10] liquid xenon detectors operated deep underground.[11]
Awards
Aprile received the National Science Foundation Career Award in 1991 and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Award in 1999. She has been a Fellow of the American Physical Society since 2000.
In 2005 she received the medal of Ufficiale della Republica Italiana from the Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi.[12]
Asteroid 268686 Elenaaprile, discovered by Italian amateur astronomer Silvano Casulli in 2006, was named in her honor.[13] The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 4 November 2017 (M.P.C. 107121).[14]
In 2019 she received the Lancelot M. Berkeley–New York Community Trust Prize for Meritorious Work in Astronomy from the American Astronomical Society.[15]
In 2020 she was selected as Margaret Burbidge Visiting Professor of Physics at UC San Diego,[16] and elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.[17]
In 2021 she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences
References
Kolata, Gina (2011-06-06). "Women Atop Their Fields Dissect the Scientific Life". The New York Times. New York.
"Discover Interview: The Dark Hunter".
Nathaniel Herzberg (2017-05-29). "Elena Aprile, la chasseuse de matière noire". Le Monde (in French). Retrieved 2017-05-29.
E. Aprile, A. E. Bolotnikov, A. I. Bolozdynya, T. Doke: Noble Gas Detectors. Wiley 2006.
Aprile, E.; Doke, T. (2010). "Liquid xenon detectors for particle physics and astrophysics". Reviews of Modern Physics. 82 (3): 2053–2097. arXiv:0910.4956. Bibcode:2010RvMP...82.2053A. doi:10.1103/RevModPhys.82.2053. S2CID 118576462.
Aprile, E.; et al. (2004). "Calibration and in-flight performance of the Compton telescope prototype LXeGRIT". New Astronomy Reviews. 48 (1–4): 257–262. Bibcode:2004NewAR..48..257A. doi:10.1016/j.newar.2003.11.053.
Aprile, E.; Curioni, A.; Giboni, K.-L.; Kobayashi, M.; Ni, K.; Oberlack, U.G. (2003). "A New Light Readout System for the LXeGRIT Time Projection Chamber" (PDF). IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science. 50 (5): 1303–1308. Bibcode:2003ITNS...50.1303A. doi:10.1109/TNS.2003.818235.
"LXeGRIT - A Liquid Xenon Gamma-Ray Imaging Telescope". 2002-10-22. Retrieved 2015-02-12.
Aprile, E.; et al. (2006). "Simultaneous Measurement of Ionization and Scintillation from Nuclear Recoils in Liquid Xenon for a Dark Matter Experiment". Physical Review Letters. 97 (8): 081302. arXiv:astro-ph/0601552. Bibcode:2006PhRvL..97h1302A. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.97.081302. PMID 17026288. S2CID 2974093.
Aprile, E.; et al. (XENON100 Collaboration) (2011). "Study of the electromagnetic background in the XENON100 experiment". Physical Review D. 83 (82001): 082001. arXiv:1101.3866. Bibcode:2011PhRvD..83h2001A. doi:10.1103/physrevd.83.082001. S2CID 85451637.
Aprile, E.; et al. (2005). "The XENON dark matter search experiment". New Astronomy Reviews. 49 (2–6): 289–295. arXiv:astro-ph/0407575. Bibcode:2005NewAR..49..289A. doi:10.1016/j.newar.2005.01.035. S2CID 18045108.
"Ufficiale Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana" (in Italian). 2015. Archived from the original on 2015-03-16.
"268686 Elenaaprile (2006 GW)". Minor Planet Center. Retrieved 5 September 2019.
"MPC/MPO/MPS Archive". Minor Planet Center. Retrieved 5 September 2019.
"Elena Aprile of XENON1T to Receive 2019 Berkeley Prize". AAS – American Astronomical Society. 18 June 2018. Retrieved 5 September 2019.
"UC San Diego Announces Margaret Burbidge Visiting Professorship". ucsdnews.ucsd.edu. Retrieved 2020-03-05.
"New members". American Academy of Arts and Sciences. 2020. Retrieved 2020-09-27.
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