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The Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS) : status and future

Abstract: The CDMS collaboration utilizes Ge and Si detectors for their Weakly Interacting Massive Particle (WIMP) search at the Soudan Mine, Minnesota. The final CDMS II run is now complete with data analysis expected to be completed by the summer of 2009. For SuperCDMS the 3-inch diameter, 1 cm thick, Ge crystals are being replaced with 1 inch thick crystals. The first SuperTower of such detectors with 3 kg of active Ge mass has arrived at Soudan. We anticipate that zero-background running will continue both due to the increased volume-to-surface ratio; improved phonon sensor design with improved timing-based rejection of surface events; and further reduction of any possible radon plate-out during fabrication, assembly and testing. Further ahead, we expect to encounter the muon-induced neutron background at the Soudan depth of 2080 m.w.e. The SuperCDMS collaboration is making plans for a new, larger, cryogenic facility housed at a deeper site, possibly SNOLab, Canada with an expected initial deployment of 100 kg of Ge. In addition an engineering study looking forward to 1.5 tonnes of Ge has been submitted as a DUSEL proposal by the GEODM collaboration. A review of our present status and these future proposals will be presented along with consideration of key technology issues.
Speaker: Paul Brink - Stanford University
Speaker Bio: Paul Brink is a Senior Research Scientist in the Department of Physics at Stanford. Detector design, fabrication, testing, and commissioning of the cryogenics of CDMS II at Soudan, Minnesota, have kept him occupied for the past 9 years. Other science interests have included cryogenic detectors for soft X-ray detection, with application for the warm-hot baryonic component of Dark Matter; and optical photon detectors of interest for compact time-varying astrophysical sources. Prior to 2000 he was employed by Oxford Instruments to develop cryogenic X-ray detectors for material analysis, and a superconducting gravity gradiometer. His post-doc was with Prof Blas Cabrera on CDMS I; and his thesis is from the University of Oxford, entitled 'Non-equilibrium Superconductivity induced by X-ray photons'.
Poster Link: Poster
Presentation: Presentation on 4/15/2009 (PDF)