HIGH ENERGY THEORY / RELATIVITY / COSMOLOGY SEMINARS
Spring 2007
Wednesday February 14 Seminar at 2pm (unusual day and time) :
Richard Schnee (Case Western Reserve University)
Title : Recent Results and Future Prospects of the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS)
Abstract:
| Weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) form an excellent candidate for the universe's non-baryonic dark matter. The CDMS experiment has achieved unequaled discrimination of WIMP-search backgrounds using germanium and silicon detectors cooled to 50 mK. Results from the experiment's first runs with about a kg of Ge at the Soudan Underground Laboratory have led to the world's lowest exclusion limits on the WIMP-nucleon scalar cross-section, ruling out a significant range of neutralino supersymmetric models. The current 4.5-kg run promises an increase in sensitivity of an order of magnitude. By scaling the experiment up to a ton mass and siting it deep, three additional orders of magnitude in sensitivity can be achieved. Operation of these novel detectors, results from the recent and current runs, and the prospects for WIMP discovery will be discussed. |
Host : Trodden