Current PhD Thesis Fellows
Joao Da Rocha
Born in Suresnes, France, I grew up and did all my studies in France. I have two bachelor’s degrees, physics and mathematics, at Sorbonne Université ( former Université Pierre et Marie Curie). I graduated from the « Noyaux Particules Astroparticules Cosmologie » (NPAC) program also at Sorbonne Université, which is a high energy experimental physics masters in 2016. I started my PhD in 2016, at the LPNHE funded by the Institut Lagrange de Paris (ILP). I work under the supervision of Antoine Letessier-Selvon on the Dark Matter in CCDs (DAMIC) experiment.
The goal of the DAMIC experiment is to detect signals from dark matter which represents ~25% ouf our universe. However dark matter and ordinary matter barely interact, thus it is very hard to detect signals from it. Thanks to the CDDs which have a very low sensibility, we can detect very low signals down to 3.6 eV with no electronic noise. Thus we could detect dark matter signals, but also signals from all kinds of particles. During my PhD, I produced a Geant4 simulation of the DAMIC experiment. The simulation is used by the collaboration to produce models for different analysis, like the analysis of the background spectrum coming from the radioactive decays occurring in the different volumes of the detector. I also produced some analysis to evaluate the radioactive noise produced by precise radioactive isotopes, like the tritium that is produced inside the CCDs, by spallation of cosmic rays.
Outside physics, I am also a musician playing viola for 17 years at the Asnières music school and I am part of the music school administration council.
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