Alexander Kavner

  • Program Year: 3
  • Academic Institution: University of Michigan
  • Field of Study: Nuclear Science
  • Academic Advisor: Igor Jovanovic
  • Residencies:
    Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (2021)
    Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (2022)
  • Degree(s):
    M.S. Physics, University of Chicago, 2019; B.S. Honors Physics and Pure Mathematics, University of Michigan (Ann Arbor), 2017

Summary of Research

I work on developing advanced technologies for precision measurements of nuclear isotopes. This work contributes both to our understanding of fundamental nuclear physics as well as towards development of novel techniques for nuclear safe-guards and forensics.

Publications

Measurement of 254eV Nuclear Recoil with 68.75keV Gamma-Ray: Suggestive Evidence for Quenching Factor Enhancement in Germanium. Currently under preparation with plans to submit to Physical Review-C or D.

Absolute Decay Counting of 146Sm with 4-Pi Cryogenic Microcalorimetry A.R.L. Kavner and et. al. Currently under peer review with Nuclear Instrumentation and Methods A.


Efficiency Studies for MAGNETO-v Experiment. A.R.L. Kavner and et al. Currently under peer review with Journal of Low Temperature Physics

Kavner, A.R.L., Lee, D., Boyd, S.T.P. et al. Study of Pile-Up Effects in Decay Energy Spectroscopy. J Low Temp Phys (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10909-022-02829-2

Kim, G.B., Borg, L.E., Boyd, S.T.P. et al. Absolute Decay Counting of 146Sm and 147Sm for Early Solar System Chronology. J Low Temp Phys (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10909-022-02798-6

K. Ogren, A. Kavner, S. Dazeley, and I. Jovanovic, Development of 17N as a time-tagged neutron source for calibration of large antineutrino detectors, Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research A 1033, 166654 (2022).

J. Colaresi, J.I. Collar, T.W. Hossbach, A.R.L. Kavner, C.M. Lewis, A.E. Robinson, and K.M. Yocum. First results from a search for coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering at a reactor site. Phys. Rev. D 104, 072003 (2021). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.104.072003

J.I . Collar, A.R.L. Kavner, C.M. Lewis, Germanium response to sub-keV nuclear recoils: a multipronged experimental characterization, Phys. Rev. D 103, 122003 (2021). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.103.122003

Baxter D., Collar J.I., Coloma, P. Dahl C.E., Esteban I., Ferrario P., Gomez-Canenas J.J., Gonzalez-Garcia M.C., Kavner A.R.L., Lewis C.M., Monrabal F., Munoz Vida J., Privitera P., Ramanathan K., Renner J., Coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering at the European Spallation Source. J. High Energ. Phys. 2020, 123 (2020). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP02(2020)123

J.I . Collar, A.R.L. Kavner, C.M. Lewis, Response of CsI[Na] to nuclear recoils: Impact on coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering. Phys. Rev. D 100, 033003 (2019). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.100.033003

K. Ramanathan, A. Kavner, A.E. Chavarria, P. Privitera, D. Amidei, T.L. Chou, A. Matalon, R. Thomas, J. Estrada, J. Tiffenberg, and J. Molina, Measurement of low energy ionization signals from Compton scattering in a charge-coupled device dark matter detector, Phys. Rev. D 96, 042002 (2017). DOI: https://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevD.96.042002

A. Aguilar-Arevalo, et. al., (CONNIE Collaboration), Exploring low-energy neutrino physics with the Coherent Neutrino Nucleus Interaction Experiment. Phys. Rev. D 100, 092005 (2019). DOI: https://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevD.100.092005

F. Izraelevitch, et. al., A measurement of the ionization efficiency of nuclear recoils in silicon, JINST 12 P06014 (2017). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-0221/12/06/p06014

Aguilar-Arevalo A., et. al., (DAMIC Collaboration), Search for low-mass WIMPs in a 0.6 kg day exposure of the DAMIC experiment at SNOLAB, Phys. Rev. D 94, 082006 (2016). DOI: https://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevD.94.082006

Awards

University of Michigan Rackham Graduate Research Award, 2022
University of Chicago Eckhardt Graduate Scholarship, 2017
University of Chicago Albert A. Michelson Fellowship, 2017
University of Chicago Robert G. Sachs Fellowship, 2017
University of Michigan, Graduated with High Honors and Distinction, 2017
University of Michigan Tiffany Fellowship, 2015, 2016
University of Michigan James B. Angel Scholar 2014, 2015, 2016
Ford Motor Company Scholarship, 2014
University of Michigan Bell Scholarship, 2013
Michigan Merit Scholarship, 2013