Research Areas
Atomic, Molecular & Optical Physics; Nuclear Physics; Particle Physics
Research Type
Experimentalist
Current Projects
nEXO, Search for new Interactions in a Microshere Precision Levitation Experiment (SIMPLE)
Biographical Sketch
David Moore’s research focuses on experimental nuclear and particle physics, including tests of the fundamental nature of neutrinos, dark matter, and gravity at microscopic distances. He received his undergraduate degree from Yale University and his PhD from Caltech, where he worked on searching for interactions from dark matter particles using cryogenic detectors. Following his PhD, he was a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University before returning to Yale to join the faculty in 2016.
Research
Professor Moore’s research group is developing new technologies to search for physics beyond the Standard Model of particle physics. These experiments use precision techniques to search for tiny effects in the lab, including new fundamental phenomena (e.g., those related to neutrinos, dark matter, or the microscopic nature of gravity) that may occur at much higher energy or much weaker couplings than could be directly detected at particle accelerators or other direct searches. We are currently involved in searching for neutrinoless double beta decay with the nEXO experiment, which aims to identify this lepton-number-violating decay if it occurs with a half-life up to 1028 years (nearly 1018 times the age of the universe). We are also developing force sensors and accelerometers capable of searching for new forces (as small as 10-21 N) using optically trapped, nanogram scale masses. These optomechanical sensors have applications to searches for dark matter, tests of Newton’s and Coulomb’s laws at microscopic distances, and are approaching quantum measurement regimes for nanogram mass mechanical objects. Professor Moore’s research group is housed at Professor Moore’s research group is housed at Wright Laboratory and Prof. Moore is a member of the Yale Quantum Institute.
Research Website
CV (pdf file)
Education
PhD, Physics, California Institute of Technology, 2012; BS, Physics (Int.), Mathematics, Yale University, 2006
Honors & Awards
Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship in Physics, 2018
NSF Early Career Award, 2017
Lee Grodzins Postdoctoral Award, MIT, 2015
Mitsuyoshi Tanaka Dissertation Award in Experimental Particle Physics, APS, 2013