Aprile, Elena
Oral history interview with Elena Aprile, 2021 April 30.
Interview with Elena Aprile, Centennial Professor of Physics at Columbia University. Aprile describes the feeling of just having been elected to the National Academy of Science and she describes how the XENON Dark Matter search has continued despite the pandemic. She explains why so much of physics is devoted to try to understand dark matter and where she sees the interplay of theory and experiment toward that end. Aprile describes why finding dark matter will mean finding new physics beyond the Standard Model, and she recounts her upbringing in Milan and her developing interests in physics during high school. She describes her first visit to CERN when she was a student at the University of Naples and what it was like to meet Carlo Rubbia. Aprile discusses her graduate work at the University of Geneva where she worked on scattering protons to study time violation effects. She explains her interest in the UA1 and UA2 experiments at CERN and her work on noble liquid detectors, her appointment at Harvard, and her first involvement with radiation spectroscopy. Aprile narrates her realization that xenon would be valuable for astrophysics and dark matter specifically, and she describes the origins of the LXeGRIT telescope project. She explains why Gran Sasso was chosen on the site of the XENON experiment and some of the technical and economic challenges in dealing with xenon on the scale required to search for dark matter. Aprile reflects on the difficulties she has faced as a woman in her field, and she describes the competitive value in having the LZ experiment and its search for dark matter. She explains how one goes about searching for dark matter without knowing what dark matter is. At the end of the interview, Aprile imagines what it will mean to find dark matter, what mysteries it will solve, and why she will remain steadfastly cautious before confirming the discovery.
Elena Aprile is a Centennial Professor of Physics at Columbia University. Aprile completed her graduate studies at the University of Geneva and has held research appointments at CERN and Harvard University. Aprile is the founder of the XENON Dark Matter Experiment. In 2021, she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
Aprile, Elena
Rubbia, Carlo, 1934-
Columbia University
European Organization for Nuclear Research
Harvard University.
Laboratori nazionali del Gran Sasso (Italy)
National Academy of Sciences (U.S.)
Universit ̌de Genv̈e
Astrophysics
Dark matter (Astronomy)
Gamma rays
Gases, Rare
Gravitational waves.
Particle physics. gtt
Protons -- Scattering.
Spectrum analysis
Standard model (Nuclear physics)
Women in science
Interviews. aat
Oral histories. aat
Transcripts. aat
Zierler, David, 1979- interviewer.
AIP-ICOS
American Institute of Physics. Niels Bohr Library & Archives. One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740, USA