| Abstract: |
Cosmological measurements indicate that the ordinary matter encompassed within the Standard Model of particle physics can account for only ~1/6 of the matter in the universe, providing direct evidence for new physics beyond the Standard Model. A leading candidate for this dark matter is weakly interacting massive particles, which offers the possibility of directly observing dark matter interactions in terrestrial detectors. The Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS) uses Ge crystals cooled to ~50 mK to measure the athermal phonons expected from dark matter interacting with the Ge nucleus. Simultaneous measurement of the associated ionization signal allows robust rejection of backgrounds from ionizing radiation. The status and results for CDMS experiments at the Soudan Underground Laboratory (CDMS-II and SuperCDMS Soudan), as well as efforts to build a new 200 kg experiment at SNOLAB (SuperCDMS SNOLAB), will be presented. |
