Cryogenic Dark Matter Search

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The Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS) is an experiment designed to directly detect particle dark matter in the form of WIMPs. The CDMS detectors measure the ionization and phonons produced by every particle interaction in their germanium and silicon crystal substrates. These two measurements determine the energy deposited in the crystal in each interaction, but also give information about what kind of particle caused the event. This allows most of the unwanted background interactions to be rejected, so that any WIMP-scattering events can be identified even if they are very rare. CDMS collected WIMP search data in a shallow underground site at Stanford University through 2002, and has operated (with collaboration from the University of Minnesota) in the Soudan Mine since 2003. Its results so far are negative, but CDMS is able to provide the most sensitive limits on WIMP dark matter in many interesting models.