Research undertaken by Wright Lab associate professor’s David Moore group has been selected by “Physics World” as one of the Top 10 Breakthroughs of the Year for 2024. According to the “Physics World” website, “The Top Ten is the shortlist for the Physics World Breakthrough of the Year, which will be revealed on Thursday 19 December.”
The breakthrough list is chosen each year by the editorial team of “Physics World” based on the following criteria. The paper must demonstrate “significant advance in knowledge or understanding [and] importance of work for scientific progress and/or development of real-world applications and [be] of general interest to “Physics World” readers.”
Adding to the impact, the Moore group’s research has also been named one of the “Highlights of the Year” for 2024 by “Physics Magazine”.
The Moore group’s breakthrough is described in a paper that was published in “Physical Review Letters” in July called “Mechanical Detection of Nuclear Decays,” led by Jiaxiang Wang, graduate student in applied physics and a member of the Moore group. Other members of the group who contributed to the publication are Moore; physics postdoctoral associate Tom Penny; physics graduate students Benjamin Siegel and Yu-Han Tseng; and physics undergraduate student Juan Recoaro. All Moore group members are also members of Wright Lab.
Physics World explains, “To David Moore, Jiaxiang Wang and colleagues at Yale University, US, for detecting the nuclear decay of individual helium nuclei by embedding radioactive lead-212 atoms in a micron-sized silica sphere and measuring the sphere’s recoil as nuclei escape from it. Their technique relies on the conservation of momentum, and it can gauge forces as small as 1020 N and accelerations as tiny as 107 g, where g is the local acceleration due to the Earth’s gravitational pull. The researchers hope that a similar technique may one day be used to detect neutrinos, which are much less massive than helium nuclei but are likewise emitted as decay products in certain nuclear reactions.”
To find out more information about the development of the technique and its impact, see “Moore group develops innovative technique to detect elusive particles,” an article published on the Wright Lab website in August.