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Michael K. Moe

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Michael K. Moe (born 17 November 1937 in Milwaukee)[1] is an American experimental physicist, specializing in particle physics and nuclear physics. He is known his role in 1987 in the direct detection of two neutrino double beta decay in 82Se.[2][3] (Indirect detection of two neutrino double beta decay had been done in the 1960s.)

Education and career

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Moe received in 1959 his bachelor's degree from Stanford University and in 1965 his Ph.D. under Frederick Reines from Case Western Reserve University.

He spent a year as a post-doc at Caltech, doing cloud-chamber studies of high-energy cosmic-ray interactions. In 1966 he moved to the University of California at Irvine, where a preprint sent by C. S. Wu sparked his interest in double beta decay. From his experience at Caltech he recognized that a cloud chamber would mitigate a troublesome 214Bi background encountered by Wu. His cloud chamber indeed tagged the bismuth events, but accumulated data too slowly. David Nygren’s new concept of a time projection chamber suggested a way to improve sensitivity. Moe designed a TPC for double beta decay, and developed it with Steve Elliott and Alan Hahn to finally see the first solid evidence of two-neutrino decay in 82Se in 1987. His group went on to measure this rare decay in 48Ca, 100Mo, and 150Nd.[4]

Moe became at the University of California, Irvine in 1966 an assistant research physicist, in 1968 an assistant professor, in 1973 a research physicist, and retiring in 1997.

He was also involved in the search for the extremely rare (and perhaps nonexistent) neutrino-less double beta decay, for which he published a proposal in 1991;[5] in the 2000s he participated in the search for such decay pursued by SLAC's Enriched Xenon Observatory (EXO).

In 2013 Moe received the Tom W. Bonner Prize in Nuclear Physics.[4]

References

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  1. ^ biographical information from American Men and Women of Science, Thomson Gale 2004
  2. ^ Elliott, S. R.; Hahn, A. A.; Moe, M. K. (1987). "Direct evidence for two-neutrino double-beta decay in 82Se". Phys. Rev. Lett. 59 (18): 2220–2223. Bibcode:1987PhRvL..59.2020E. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.59.2020. PMID 10035397.
  3. ^ Browne, Malcolm W. (4 September 1987). "Predicted Decay of Element Seen". NY Times.
  4. ^ a b 2013 Tom W. Bonner Prize in Nuclear Physics Recipient, Michael K. Moe
  5. ^ Moe, M. K. (1991). "New approach to the detection of neutrinoless double beta decay". Phys. Rev. C. 44 (3): R931–R934. Bibcode:1991PhRvC..44..931M. doi:10.1103/PhysRevC.44.R931. PMID 9967528.