Recipients of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Fundamental Physics Innovation Awards

Noah A. Kurinsky
Over the last few years, a growing community of scientists has begun to explore the prospect of dark matter lighter than the proton (sub- GeV), which cannot currently be detected with conventional laboratory-based searches. This workshop, “New Directions in the Search for Light Dark Matter”, of which Noah A. Kurinsky, PhD, was a local organizing committee member, aimed to bring together the various international communities, both experimental and theoretical, working on new technologies and models for light dark matter, in order to explore the feasibility and naturalness of these new ideas.

Paul Hess
Paul Hess, PhD, visiting assistant professor of physics at Middlebury College, visited the Jayich group at UC Santa Barbara to study molecular ions that are promising systems to discover new sources of symmetry violation responsible for the absence of anti-matter in the Universe. The collaboration performed the spectroscopy necessary to plan precision measurements for controlling these molecules at the level of single quantum states.

Fred Wietfeldt
Fred Wietfeldt, PhD, and his team planned an experiment at the University of Washington to limit or measure the Fierz interference effect in the beta energy spectrum of Helium-6, a heavy isotope of helium, to a precision of less than 0.1%. The presence of this effect, predicted to be zero in the Standard Model of particle physics, may provide hints of new physics.

Pavlos Protopapas
Pavlos Protopapas, PhD, visited to bring the power and flexibility of machine-learning approaches to bear on the next frontier of gravitational-wave searches; namely, using precise radio observations of pulsars to make a Galactic net of clocks that can catch gravitational-wave emission from supermassive binary black-hole systems. With the ever increasing volume of data being collected, and some noise processes challenging to filter, deep-learning is an exciting tool to deploy on this new portion of the gravitational-wave landscape.

Ira Rothstein
Ira Rothstein's, PhD, collaboration involved utilizing S matrix techniques for the purposes of making precision predictions for gravity waves produced in binary inspirals.

Mariangela Settimo
Mariangela Settimo, PhD, of the DAMIC collaborative was presented with this award for the analysis of the data collected by the DAMIC experiment at SNOLAB to search for dark matter and to discuss future directions and technologies for dark matter direct detection at the Center for Experimental Nuclear Physics and Astrophysics (CENPA) at the University of Washington.

Shimon Kolkowitz
Shimon Kolkowitz, PhD, an experimental atomic physicist from the University of Wisconsin - Madison, visited Stevens Institute of Technology to give a lecture on the use of optical atomic clocks for fundamental physics research. The seminar served as the basis for scientific discussions on the prospects for using optical atomic clocks for the study of gravity and foundations of general relativity with host, Igor Pikovski, PhD, a theoretical physicist at Stevens Institute of Technology.

Philip Cole
Philip Cole, PhD, of Lamar University; Elton Smith, PhD, of Jefferson Lab; and Michael Wood, PhD, of Canisius College, received a Convening Award to organize the Light Dark Matter @ Accelerators LDMA2019 workshop. Andrea Celentano and Marco Battaglieri, both from INFN-Genova, were the lead workshop organizers of LDMA2019, which convened in Venice, Italy, November 20-22, 2019.

Timothy Chupp
Measurement of magnetic fields with absolute accuracy is being transformed with the development of optically pumped 3He magnetometers and self-calibrated measurement the magnetic moment of the helion - the 3He nucleus. This Visitor Award enabled Timothy Chupp's, PhD, collaboration with the group of Klaus Blum, PhD, of Max Planck Institute, Heidelberg, to bring these two developments together and connect to measurement of the magnetic moment anomaly of the muon, currently underway at Fermilab.

Yamaç (Pehlivan) Deliduman
Yamaç (Pehlivan) Deliduman, PhD, from Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University in Istanbul, and A. Baha Balantekin, PhD, from University of Wisconsin - Madison collaborated on the neutrino emission from a core collapse supernova. In particular, they analyzed the emergent many-body phenomena associated with neutrino flavor oscillations at high densities and illuminated the possible role of sterile neutrinos in the scheme.

Jayant Murthy
This proposal aimed to invite Jayant Murthy, PhD, an expert in observational analyses of the ultraviolet background radiation, to Maryland to engage in intensive discussions with James Overduin, PhD, of Towson University, and Richard Henry, PhD, of Johns Hopkins University, on the possibility that recently detected anomalies in this radiation may be connected to the nature of dark matter. In particular, they aimed to determine whether a conclusive answer to this question may be obtained using data from the ALICE spectrometer aboard the New Horizons spacecraft.

Qiaoli Yang
Qiaoli Yang, PhD, associate professor of physics at Jinan University in Guangzhou, visited Pierre Sikivie, PhD, at University of Florida to explore the quantum nature of axion dark matter. As axions are generally predicted by theories with extra dimensions such as string theory, a deep understanding of their quantum properties and consequent cosmological, astrophysical and laboratory properties may serve as a new window on ultra-high energy scale physics.

Jon Urheim
Jon Urheim, PhD, of Indiana University Bloomington presented a department-wide colloquium on the DUNE (Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment) and NOvA (NuMI Off-axis electron neutrino appearance) projects, which he works on, as well as on neutrino physics in general. Fundamental physics was advanced through an interdisciplinary discussion linking neutrino physics with dark matter (LZ, University of Albany Professor Szydagis) and the LHC (ATLAS, University of Albany Professor Jain).

Daniel Carney and Cindy Regal
Paradigmatic advances in the ability to create, control, and detect quantum states of massive mechanical objects has enabled unprecedented levels of sensitivity to small displacements and forces. The meeting organized by Daniel Carney, PhD, and Cindy Regal, PhD, brought together theoretical and experimental researchers from both the particle physics and quantum sensing communities, with the goal of developing new probes of physics beyond the standard model using mechanical devices in the quantum regime.

David Hertzog and David McKeen
David Hertzog, PhD, and David McKeen, PhD, of CENPA and TRIUMF, ran a workshop to determine the best avenues to pursue fundamental physics in the Pacific Northwest on April, 26-28, 2020 in Whistler, British Columbia, Canada. The generous support of the Moore Foundation allowed leading experts in physics beyond the standard model to gather and discuss the unique opportunities offered at these two laboratories.

Edward John Daw
Ed Daw, PhD, of The University of Sheffield, United Kingdom, visited The University of Washington, Seattle, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, to collaborat on the Axion Dark Matter Search (ADMX) experiment. Daw assisted with data analysis training and development as well as conducted research and development on novel resonant feedback techniques aimed at increasing the search rate for axions in the Galactic dark matter halo.

Sylvain Fichet
Sylvain Fichet's, PhD, collaboration studied exotic spin-dependent forces originating from light sectors beyond the Standard Model. The collaboration's aim was to explore and guide the future experimental prospects for such forces, which offer a window into light hidden sectors and can serve as light Dark Matter searches.

Matt Redshaw
In this talk, Matt Redshaw, PhD, discussed high precision atomic mass measurements performed using Penning traps to determine b-decay Q values for isotopes used in bb-decay and neutrino mass determination experiments. The Q value measurements can assist in the interpretation of results from these large scale experiments to answer questions about the neutrino mass scale and its Dirac or Majorana particle nature.

Ronald F. Garcia Ruiz and Nick Hutzler
Molecules containing heavy and deformed radioactive nuclei are predicted to provide unprecedented sensitivity to investigate the fundamental laws of nature and to search for new physics beyond the Standard Model. This workshop, “New Opportunities for Fundamental Physics Research with Radioactive Molecules” from Ronald F. Garcia Ruiz, PhD, and Nick Hutzler, PhD, at the Massachusetts Insitutte of Technology (MIT), gathered world leading theoreticians and experimentalists working in molecular spectroscopy, nuclear physics, precision measurements, and radioactive beam science, to propose new ideas and establish new collaborations to advance this emergent and exciting field of research.

Zelimir Djurcic

In this lecture, Zelimir Djurcic, PhD, discussed open questions in neutrino physics, including recent neutrino mixing results, inputs on neutrino masses from cosmology, and limits on effective neutrino mass from double-beta decay searches. Fundamental physics was advanced through the discussion linking three-flavor neutrino physics to research focused on search for keV sterile neutrinos, which could mix with Standard Model neutrinos and present viable dark-matter candidates.