News
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
Levine Wins NSF Award
Ilan Levine, Associate Professor of Physics and Astronomy, was awarded $420,000 (to be spent over three years) from the National Science Foundation to continue his work on detecting dark matter. The search for dark matter is one of the big challenges for astrophysics today.
Levine works with two research collaborations--COUPP at Fermilab in Illinois and PICASSO at SNOLAB in Ontario, Canada--to conduct underground experiments that seek to detect the existence of neutralinos, one kind of WIMPS (Weakly Interacting Massive Particles). Levine’s team of students has been producing the sound sensors used in the bubble chamber detectors of superheated fluid. Levine’s sensors have proven to be useful for discarding cosmic ray induced events and distinguishing the only radioactive signal of concern for moderately superheated fluids. Levine and his students have also built equipment to measure radon emanation from and diffusion through materials and are now prepared to vet materials for COUPP, PICASSO and other experiments.
Seven physics students and six students with other majors have participated in Levine’s work at IU South Bend. They have participated in design, construction and characterization of acoustic transducers, measurement of radioactivity and other projects for the experiments. Some have contributed enough to present their work at national and international conferences and some have been co-authors of refereed papers by COUPP and PICASSO. Levine has started to work with one local high school to provide high school students with science experiment experiences. The first such student has started to work on characterizing the temperature dependence of COUPP’s acoustic sensor performance. Levine sees enhancing the education of undergraduates as an integral part of his research program.
