Paolo Privitera

Senior Member, KICP
Professor, Departments of Astronomy and Astrophysics; Physics; Enrico Fermi Institute; and the College

Paolo Privitera
Address:
Eckhardt Research Center
Room 473
5640 South Ellis Avenue
Chicago, IL 60637
Phone:
(773) 702-2983
Email:
priviter@kicp.uchicago.edu

Background

Laurea 1989 (Physics) Bologna, Italy; Ph.D. 1993 (Physics) Karlsruhe, Germany

Research

The nature of Dark Matter(DM)  - five times more common in the universe than ordinary matter according to astrophysical and cosmological evidence - is still eluding our understanding. A compelling explanation invokes yet unknown particles as a major component of DM. Privitera scrutinizes this hypothesis by searching for DM-induced nuclear and electron recoils in mm-thick Charge Coupled Devices (CCDs.) He is the PI of the DAMIC-M (Dark Matter In CCDs at Modane) experiment, a kg-size detector based on the CCD technology to be installed at the Laboratoire Souterrain de Modane  in France, protected from cosmic rays by the rock overburden of the Alps. With its unprecedented low energy threshold (few eV), DAMIC-M will take a leap forward of several orders of magnitude in the exploration of the dark matter particle hypothesis, in particular of candidates pertaining to the so-called "hidden sector."  

Privitera is also working on novel technologies to detect nuclear recoils from low-energy neutrino interactions. In collaboration with Professor Cleland (PME), Privitera is developing qubit-based detectors with sub-eV energy threshold, which will significantly advance neutrino physics at nuclear reactors.  

The origin of Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays (UHECRs, >1019 eV) is a fascinating long-lasting mystery of particle astrophysics. What physical mechanism can produce or accelerate particles to energies 10 million times higher than the man-made Large Hadron Collider beam? Whether the answer is to be found in the most extreme objects of the universe (e.g. Active Galactic Nuclei powered by blackholes) or in exotic new fundamental particle physics (e.g. cosmological strings), our view of the energy frontier in particle astrophysics will be challenged. To detect these rare particles, the Pierre Auger Observatory covers 3000 km2 in the province of Mendoza, Argentina - the largest cosmic ray detector ever built. Privitera’s group is involved in the data analysis, now enhanced by the Observatory’s upgrade completed in 2025. Also, Privitera is pushing the next-generation UHECRs detectors with a compact Fluorescence Detector, FAST, which is taking data at the Telescope Array and Auger Observatory. 
 
As an experimental particle physicist, Privitera worked for the DELPHI experiment at the LEP e+ e- collider (CERN, Geneva), with main contributions in the measurement of the properties of the Z and W bosons, in the physics of the τ lepton and of the b quark. 

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