Alvine Kamaha

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Alvine Kamaha is a Cameroonian-born assistant professor of physics at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). [1]

Contents

Early life and education

Kamaha graduated from the University of Douala in Cameroon with undergraduate and master's degrees in theoretical physics. [1] She earned an additional master's degree at the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy. [1] [2]

She transitioned from theoretical to experimental physics when she went on to Queen's University for her Ph.D. in astroparticle physics. [1] Her first postdoctoral position was at Queen's University and her second was at the University at Albany in New York. [1] [3]

Career

While pursuing her Ph.D. at Queen's University, Alvine Kamaha worked at Sudbury's SNOLAB with Gilles Gerbier, Queen's Professor and Canada Excellence Research Chair. [4] Gerbier studied dark matter particles, and Kamaha built a new apparatus to find those particles. [4] Her work was primarily for an experiment called New Experiments With Spheres (NEWS) with the goal of detecting dark matter particles with spheres containing a ball attached by a rod and filled with a gas which would then ionize upon interaction with dark matter particles. [4] The electrons in the gas would move to the center of the sphere when voltage was given to the ball and that would cause an avalanche. [4] The movement would form an electric pulse, resulting in data which would be analyzed for potential dark matter particle detection. [4]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Kamaha was a calibration operations coordinator for the LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) experiment at the Sanford Underground Research Facility in Lead, South Dakota and served on the experiment's equity and inclusion committee. [1]

Kamaha played an important role in ensuring the LZ was free of dust or any other potential contamination during the assembly stage. [5] Kamaha then led work on the calibration system to ensure common particles were not confused with dark matter. [5] The dark matter particles detected by the LZ are called weakly interacting massive particles or WIMPs. [5] While initial experiments did not detect dark matter, Kamaha contributed to building the cleanest and most sensitive instrument in the world to detect WIMPs. [5] [6] [7] [8]

Kamaha is an assistant professor of physics at UCLA where she is the inaugural Keith and Cecilia Terasaki Chair in Physical Sciences. [5] [9] [10] Kamaha's research group, ExCaliBUR (Experimental Detector Calibrations & Background Controls for Underground Particle Physics Research), focuses on developing technologies that can detect dark matter. [11]

She is the recipient of the American Physical Society's 2024 Edward A. Bouchet Award for her contributions to uncovering dark matter in the universe and fostering diversity through mentorship. [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] She is a role model for African girls who aspire to a career in science and a source of pride for Cameroon. [18]

Selected publications

Related Research Articles

Weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) are hypothetical particles that are one of the proposed candidates for dark matter.

In supersymmetry, the neutralino is a hypothetical particle. In the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM), a popular model of realization of supersymmetry at a low energy, there are four neutralinos that are fermions and are electrically neutral, the lightest of which is stable in an R-parity conserved scenario of MSSM. They are typically labeled
N͂0
1,
N͂0
2,
N͂0
3 and
N͂0
4 although sometimes is also used when is used to refer to charginos.

The XENON dark matter research project, operated at the Italian Gran Sasso National Laboratory, is a deep underground detector facility featuring increasingly ambitious experiments aiming to detect hypothetical dark matter particles. The experiments aim to detect particles in the form of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) by looking for rare nuclear recoil interactions in a liquid xenon target chamber. The current detector consists of a dual phase time projection chamber (TPC).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">UK Dark Matter Collaboration</span> 1987–2007 particle physics experiment

The UK Dark Matter Collaboration (UKDMC) (1987–2007) was an experiment to search for Weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs). The consortium consisted of astrophysicists and particle physicists from the United Kingdom, who conducted experiments with the ultimate goal of detecting rare scattering events which would occur if galactic dark matter consists largely of a new heavy neutral particle. Detectors were set up 1,100 m (3,600 ft) underground in a halite seam at the Boulby Mine in North Yorkshire.

PICO is an experiment searching for direct evidence of dark matter using a bubble chamber of chlorofluorocarbon (Freon) as the active mass. It is located at SNOLAB in Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">DEAP</span> Dark matter search experiment

DEAP is a direct dark matter search experiment which uses liquid argon as a target material. DEAP utilizes background discrimination based on the characteristic scintillation pulse-shape of argon. A first-generation detector (DEAP-1) with a 7 kg target mass was operated at Queen's University to test the performance of pulse-shape discrimination at low recoil energies in liquid argon. DEAP-1 was then moved to SNOLAB, 2 km below Earth's surface, in October 2007 and collected data into 2011.

The Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF), or Sanford Lab, is an underground laboratory in Lead, South Dakota. The deepest underground laboratory in the United States, it houses multiple experiments in areas such as dark matter and neutrino physics research, biology, geology and engineering. There are currently 28 active research projects housed within the facility.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Large Underground Xenon experiment</span>

The Large Underground Xenon experiment (LUX) aimed to directly detect weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) dark matter interactions with ordinary matter on Earth. Despite the wealth of (gravitational) evidence supporting the existence of non-baryonic dark matter in the Universe, dark matter particles in our galaxy have never been directly detected in an experiment. LUX utilized a 370 kg liquid xenon detection mass in a time-projection chamber (TPC) to identify individual particle interactions, searching for faint dark matter interactions with unprecedented sensitivity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">European Underground Rare Event Calorimeter Array</span> Planned dark matter search experiment

The European Underground Rare Event Calorimeter Array (EURECA) is a planned dark matter search experiment using cryogenic detectors and an absorber mass of up to 1 tonne. The project will be built in the Modane Underground Laboratory and will bring together researchers working on the CRESST and EDELWEISS experiments.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">EDELWEISS</span>

EDELWEISS is a dark matter search experiment located at the Modane Underground Laboratory in France. The experiment uses cryogenic detectors, measuring both the phonon and ionization signals produced by particle interactions in germanium crystals. This technique allows nuclear recoils events to be distinguished from electron recoil events.

The DarkSide collaboration is an international affiliation of universities and labs seeking to directly detect dark matter in the form of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs). The collaboration is planning, building and operating a series of liquid argon time projection chambers (TPCs) that are employed at the Gran Sasso National Laboratory in Assergi, Italy. The detectors are filled with liquid argon from underground sources in order to exclude the radioactive isotope 39
Ar, which makes up one in every 1015 (quadrillion) atoms in atmospheric argon. The Darkside-10 (DS-10) prototype was tested in 2012, and the Darkside-50 (DS-50) experiment has been operating since 2013. Darkside-20k (DS-20k) with 20 tonnes of liquid argon is being planned as of 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ZEPLIN-III</span> 2006–2011 dark matter experiment in England

The ZEPLIN-III dark matter experiment attempted to detect galactic WIMPs using a 12 kg liquid xenon target. It operated from 2006 to 2011 at the Boulby Underground Laboratory in Loftus, North Yorkshire. This was the last in a series of xenon-based experiments in the ZEPLIN programme pursued originally by the UK Dark Matter Collaboration (UKDMC). The ZEPLIN-III project was led by Imperial College London and also included the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory and the University of Edinburgh in the UK, as well as LIP-Coimbra in Portugal and ITEP-Moscow in Russia. It ruled out cross-sections for elastic scattering of WIMPs off nucleons above 3.9 × 10−8 pb from the two science runs conducted at Boulby.

Richard Jeremy Gaitskell is a physicist and professor at Brown University and a leading scientist in the search for particle dark matter. He is co-founder, a principal investigator, and co-spokesperson of the Large Underground Xenon (LUX) experiment, which announced world-leading first results on October 30, 2013. He is also a leading investigator in the new LUX-Zeplin (LZ) dark matter experiment.

The Particle and Astrophysical Xenon Detector, or PandaX, is a dark matter detection experiment at China Jinping Underground Laboratory (CJPL) in Sichuan, China. The experiment occupies the deepest underground laboratory in the world, and is among the largest of its kind.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">LZ experiment</span> Experiment in South Dakota, United States

The LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) Experiment is a next-generation dark matter direct detection experiment hoping to observe weakly interacting massive particles (WIMP) scatters on nuclei. It was formed in 2012 by combining the LUX and ZEPLIN groups. It is currently a collaboration of 30 institutes in the US, UK, Portugal and South Korea. The experiment is located at the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) in South Dakota, and is managed by the United States Department of Energy's (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley National Lab.

Daniel Nicholas McKinsey is an American experimental physicist. McKinsey is a leader in the field of direct searches for dark matter interactions, and serves as Co-Spokesperson of the Large Underground Xenon experiment. and is an executive committee member of the LUX-ZEPLIN experiment. He serves as Director and Principal Investigator of the TESSERACT Project, and is also The Georgia Lee Distinguished Professor of Physics at the University of California, Berkeley.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ANAIS-112</span> Spanish dark matter direct detection experiment

ANAIS is a dark matter direct detection experiment located at the Canfranc Underground Laboratory (LSC), in Spain.

Direct detection of dark matter is the science of attempting to directly measure dark matter collisions in Earth-based experiments. Modern astrophysical measurements, such as from the Cosmic Microwave Background, strongly indicate that 85% of the matter content of the universe is unaccounted for. Although the existence of dark matter is widely believed, what form it takes or its precise properties has never been determined. There are three main avenues of research to detect dark matter: attempts to make dark matter in accelerators, indirect detection of dark matter annihilation, and direct detection of dark matter in terrestrial labs. The founding principle of direct dark matter detection is that since dark matter is known to exist in the local universe, as the Earth, Solar System, and the Milky Way Galaxy carve out a path through the universe they must intercept dark matter, regardless of what form it takes.

Daniel S. Akerib is an American particle physicist and astrophysicist. He was elected in 2008 a fellow of the American Physical Society (APS).

Nigel Smith is a British Canadian astroparticle physicist and the Executive Director and CEO at TRIUMF.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Black voices in physics: Alvine Kamaha". pubs.aip.org. Retrieved 2023-11-03.
  2. ↑ "Nobel Influence | ICTP". www.ictp.it. Retrieved 2023-11-05.
  3. ↑ Moore, Kathleen (2022-07-16). "UAlbany scientists in quest to see what has never been seen before: dark matter". Times Union. Retrieved 2023-11-05.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 "The search for dark matter". Queen's Alumni Review. Retrieved 2023-11-03.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 "How UCLA's Alvine Kamaha helped build the world's most sensitive dark matter detector". UCLA. Retrieved 2023-11-03.
  6. ↑ "LUX-ZEPLIN, world's most sensitive dark matter detector, successfully starts up". News9live. 2022-07-08. Retrieved 2023-11-05.
  7. ↑ Stephens, Tod (2023-04-07). "SURF receives funding for major expansion". Rapid City Journal. Retrieved 2023-11-05.
  8. ↑ glennroberts (2019-10-29). "Dark Matter Experiment's Central Component Takes a Deep Dive". Berkeley Lab News Center. Retrieved 2023-11-05.
  9. ↑ Williams, Robyn (2023-05-13). "The quest to find dark matter". Australian Broadcasting Corporation, The Science Show. Retrieved 2023-11-05.
  10. ↑ "UCLA College Magazine - 2022 Edition by UCLA College - Issuu". issuu.com. 2022-07-06. Retrieved 2023-12-08.
  11. ↑ StopBlaBlaCam. "Cameroonian-born Alvine Kamaha Wins U.S. Awards for Dark Matter Research". www.stopblablacam.com (in French). Retrieved 2023-11-07.
  12. ↑ "Edward A. Bouchet Award". Prizes & awards. American Physical Society. Retrieved 2023-11-05.
  13. ↑ "Alvine Kamaha receives American Physical Society award". UCLA. Retrieved 2023-11-05.
  14. ↑ "Professor Alvine Kamaha Wins the Prestigious Edward A. Bouchet Award". UCLA Division of Physical Sciences. 2023-11-02. Retrieved 2023-11-05.
  15. ↑ "Prof. Alvine Christelle Kamaha récipiendaire du prix Edward A. Bouchet". Icicemac (in French). 2023-10-25. Retrieved 2023-11-05.
  16. ↑ "Cameroonian Lecturer Wins Prestigious Award In US –". www.en.journalducameroun.com. Retrieved 2023-11-05.
  17. ↑ Nseme, Emilienne (2023-10-26). "Prix Edward A. Bouchet :Alvine Christelle Kamaha honorée aux Etats-Unis". L'Economie (in French). Retrieved 2023-11-05.
  18. ↑ "Afrique Centrale: Alvine Kamaha - Un brillant triomphe camerounais aux Etats-Unis de la physique moderne". Camer.be (in French). 2023-10-25. Retrieved 2023-11-08.
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