Recent Results from CDMS II and The SuperCDMS Dark-matter Program – Raymond Bunker
Date: Tue. November 6th, 2012, 11:30 am-12:30 pmLocation: Rockefeller 221
The Cryogenic Dark Matter Search experiment (CDMS II) was designed to directly detect dark matter by simultaneously measuring phonon and ionization signals caused by particle interactions in semiconductor targets, allowing event-by-event discrimination of signal from background via the relative sizes of the two signals. I’ll briefly review the CDMS II experiment and then focus on recent results related to the current low-mass WIMP controversy, including data from the CoGeNT, CRESST II, and DAMA/LIBRA experiments that hint at a low-mass WIMP signal and the (similarly sensitive) low-threshold and annual-modulation analyses performed by the CDMS II collaboration. I’ll also comment on the Collar and Fields likelihood analysis of the CDMS II low-energy data. Finally, I’ll introduce the SuperCDMS dark-matter program, with emphasis on the science reach of the new interleaved detectors currently taking WIMP-search data in the Soudan Mine.