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Society. Because there are no astronomical observatories in Tunisia, theoretical scientific research is conducted on interstellar molecules and stellar plasmas. In 1994 Professor Ben Lakhdar was elected to the Islamic Academy of Sciences. Since 2001, she has been a senior associate member at the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics-ICTP. She has chaired international conferences in her field of specialization, atomic spectroscopy, and has organized many cooperation programs with European laboratories. Most recently she chaired the Sixth International Workshop on Laser Physics and its Applications, held in Tunis. Context of the Laureate’s research A luminous physics L’ORÉAL-UNESCO FOR WOMEN IN SCIENCE 2005 L’ORÉAL-UNESCO AWARDS 2005: The Laureates “Light is the messenger of the Universe.” This was the title of a lecture given by Professor Ben Lakhdar, and it is a very vivid illustration of a miracle of physics which is continually renewing itself: light informs us about the state of matter throughout the universe and even about the universe’s past. Zohra Ben Lakhdar’s work falls completely within the ambit of analyzing bodies according to the spectrum of light they emit or absorb. We use light to detect the existence of atoms and the way they combine to form molecules, as well as their speed, temperature, energy state, and the way they associate with surrounding molecules. Light informs knowledge What a distance we have traveled! The philosopher Auguste Comte denied the possibility that we would ever come to know the composition of the Sun, the stars and the planets. It is a harsh lesson: you should not always believe the defeatist utterances of philosophers, because just a few years after Comte’s statement the German physicist Joseph von Fraunhofer showed that a body’s light emission was characteristic of the nature of the emitting element, and that one could therefore find out the composition of the stars. When she was a student in Paris, Zohra Ben Lakhdar was familiar with the prestigious Kastler-Brossel Laboratory where Alfred Kastler demonstrated for the first time the phenomenon of stimulated emission Einstein had predicted. Light falling on an atom in a particular state could be amplified by that atom through a chain reaction. This has given us the laser, which is now used everywhere: there are fewer and fewer homes in the developed and developing world that do not contain at least one laser, whether it is in a CD or DVD player, in a printer or in a diode. Then, after they had been produced in the laboratory, the phenomena of laser-type light amplification were observed in nature, in interstellar space. One of Zohra Ben Lakhdar’s most important pieces of research is the calculation of the conditions under which this laser effect could manifest itself in space matter.
Database and theoretical calculations The analysis of space matter is undertaken on the basis of the properties of the light we receive. But in order to do that the light transmitted by the atoms and molecules has to be associated with the corresponding atomic or molecular constituents. In other words, the optical signatures of the elements have to be catalogued. This compilation of spectroscopic data is an essential element in the process. Zohra Ben Lakhdar is contributing to the vital task of compiling this database. But there are cases of atoms being so extremely rare in space that the conditions necessary for their presence cannot be replicated in the laboratory. So how is one to identify the light coming from those regions? By calculating the spectrum emitted by the atoms and molecules in these conditions that are non-reproducible in the laboratory. The calculation is a difficult one, because it presupposes light-matter interactions in unknown conditions. This is another aspect of the fruitful work of Zohra Ben Lakhdar. Spectroscopic measurements have been used by Zohra Ben Lakhdar to measure air pollution with a tunable diode laser in the absence of a LIDAR. This apparatus focuses a beam of light on a region of the atmosphere and an optical instrument observes the light re-emitted by the gas in the region excited by the laser light; physicists can then determine its composition, possible pollution and the presence or absence of greenhouse gases. Difficult research L’ORÉAL-UNESCO FOR WOMEN IN SCIENCE 2005 L’ORÉAL-UNESCO AWARDS 2005: The Laureates Zohra Ben Lakhdar’s work has always been done under very difficult conditions: there is no observatory in Africa and her teams have to make their measurements in Europe and then interpret them in Tunis. Until the early 1990s there were no calculating facilities in Africa. Professor Ben Lakhdar’s determination ironed out the obstacles and kindled the enthusiasm of physicists even in these difficult environments. She displays unparalleled energy and conviction in her supervision of young research physicists. Her entire activity as a research scientist is a testimony to Professor Guy Taieb of the University of Orsay, France. Portrait Zohra Ben Lakhdar has been Professor of Physics at the University of Tunis since 1992. Educated at the Universities of Tunis and Orsay (France), she is the author of dozens of scientific papers on spectroscopy and a founding member of the Tunisian Physics and Astronomy Societies. She has established cooperative links with a number of European laboratories and chaired international conferences in her special area of study, atomic spectroscopy. “Shooting for the Moon? There are more difficult things to do! When Neil Armstrong landed on the Moon, in July 1969, the pictures he shot were on television screens all over the world. But it took another twenty years to photograph a single stationary atom! The world of the atom is difficult to explore, but possibly more rewarding. Manned space exploration has stopped, whereas research into the atom is continuing at full speed. It is where our future knowledge of the world lies. I enjoy belonging to this community of diligent research scientists who are working at the cutting edge of microscopic science.”
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