Elena Aprile (born March 12, 1954) is an Italian-American experimental particle physicist. She has been a professor of physics at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

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 Dark matter is a hypothetical form of matter thought to account for approximately 85% of the matter in the universe. Dark matter is called "dark" because it does not appear to interact with the electromagnetic field, which means it does not a ...

Education and academic career

Aprile studied physics at the

University of Naples The University of Naples Federico II ( it, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II) is a public university in Naples, Italy. Founded in 1224, it is the oldest public non-sectarian university in the world, and is now organized into 26 depar ...

and completed her masters thesis at CERN under the supervision of Professor

Carlo Rubbia Carlo Rubbia (born 31 March 1934) is an Italian particle physicist and inventor who shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1984 with Simon van der Meer for work leading to the discovery of the W and Z particles at CERN. Early life and educa ...

. After receiving her

Laurea In Italy, the ''laurea'' is the main post-secondary academic degree. The name originally referred literally to the laurel wreath, since ancient times a sign of honor and now worn by Italian students right after their official graduation ceremony ...

degree in 1978, she enrolled at the

University of Geneva The University of Geneva (French: ''Université de Genève'') is a public research university located in Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded in 1559 by John Calvin as a theological seminary. It remained focused on theology until the 17th centur ...

, 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, 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. She began working on liquid

argon Argon is a chemical element with the symbol Ar and atomic number 18. It is in group 18 of the periodic table and is a noble gas. Argon is the third-most abundant gas in Earth's atmosphere, at 0.934% (9340 ppmv). It is more than twice as ...

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. This work led to the realization of the first liquid

xenon Xenon is a chemical element with the symbol Xe and atomic number 54. It is a dense, colorless, odorless noble gas found in Earth's atmosphere in trace amounts. Although generally unreactive, it can undergo a few chemical reactions such as the ...

time projection chamber In physics, a time projection chamber (TPC) is a type of particle detector that uses a combination of electric fields and magnetic fields together with a sensitive volume of gas or liquid to perform a three-dimensional reconstruction of a particl ...

(LXeTPC) as a

Compton telescope A ''Compton telescope'' (also known as Compton camera or Compton imager) is a gamma-ray detector which utilizes Compton scattering to determine the origin of the observed gamma rays. Compton cameras are usually applied to detect gamma rays in the ...

for MeV

gamma rays A gamma ray, also known as gamma radiation (symbol γ or \gamma), is a penetrating form of electromagnetic radiation arising from the radioactive decay of atomic nuclei. It consists of the shortest wavelength electromagnetic waves, typically ...

. From 1996 to 2001, Aprile was spokesperson of the

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil List of government space agencies, space program ...

-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. Since 2001, Aprile's research focus shifted to particle astrophysics, specifically to direct detection of

with liquid xenon. Aprile is the founder and spokesperson of the

XENON Xenon is a chemical element with the symbol Xe and atomic number 54. It is a dense, colorless, odorless noble gas found in Earth's atmosphere in trace amounts. Although generally unreactive, it can undergo a few chemical reactions such as the ...

dark matter experiment, which aims to discover

WIMPs Weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) are hypothetical particles that are one of the proposed candidates for dark matter. There exists no formal definition of a WIMP, but broadly, a WIMP is a new elementary particle which interacts via gra ...

as they scatter off xenon atoms in massive yet ultra-low background liquid xenon detectors operated deep underground.

Awards

* Aprile received the

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National ...

Career Award in 1991 and the

Japan Society for the Promotion of Science The is an Independent Administrative Institution in Japan, established for the purpose of contributing to the advancement of science in all fields of the natural and social sciences and the humanities.JSPSweb page History The Japan Society for ...

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 Carlo Azeglio Ciampi (; 9 December 1920 – 16 September 2016) was an Italian politician and banker who was the prime minister of Italy from 1993 to 1994 and the president of Italy from 1999 to 2006. Biography Education Ciampi was born i ...

. * Asteroid 268686 Elenaaprile, discovered by Italian amateur astronomer

Silvano Casulli __NOTOC__ Vincenzo Silvano Casulli, usually known as Silvano Casulli (25 August 1944 – 24 July 2018

in 2006, was named in her honor. The official was published by the Minor Planet Center on 4 November 2017 (). * In 2019 she received the Lancelot M. Berkeley–

New York Community Trust The New York Community Trust is the community foundation for New York City, with divisions in Westchester and Long Island. It is one of the oldest and largest community foundations in the United States and one of the largest funders of New York C ...

Prize for Meritorious Work in Astronomy from the American Astronomical Society. *In 2020 she was selected as

Margaret Burbidge Eleanor Margaret Burbidge, FRS (; 12 August 1919 – 5 April 2020) was a British-American observational astronomer and astrophysicist. In the 1950s, she was one of the founders of stellar nucleosynthesis and was first author of the influentia ...

Visiting professor of physics at

UC San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego is t ...

, and elected to the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...

. *In 2021 she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences

References

External links

Columbia University faculty homepage

XENON1T homepage

XENON Columbia homepage

LXeGRIT homepage

Studio 360 story

Oral History Interview of Elena Aprile by David Zierler on April 30, 2021
Niels Bohr Library & Archives,

American Institute of Physics The American Institute of Physics (AIP) promotes science and the profession of physics, publishes physics journals, and produces publications for scientific and engineering societies. The AIP is made up of various member societies. Its corpora ...

, College Park, MD USA {{DEFAULTSORT:Aprile, Elena 1954 births Living people Italian expatriates in Switzerland Scientists from Milan Experimental physicists People associated with CERN 20th-century Italian physicists Particle physicists Columbia University faculty Italian women physicists Women astrophysicists Italian astrophysicists 21st-century Italian physicists Italian emigrants to the United States Fellows of the American Physical Society Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences 21st-century Italian women scientists