In pursuit of improving our understanding of the universe by studying the constituents of dark matter, the research objective of this award is to increase the current detection sensitivity of dark matter-nucleon scattering by a factor of about 100 in order to measure the cross-section between Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) and nucleons or to severely restrict theoretically favorable parameter space.
In order to achieve this objective, the SuperCDMS experiment must maintain a background environment of less than one event. This group will advance analysis techniques to discriminate electromagnetic backgrounds from dark matter signals using the new interleaved Z-sensitive Ionization and Phonon (iZIP) detectors which are scheduled to be deployed at Soudan. In addition, they are performing calculations and developing simulations to estimate the irreducible internal background from alpha-n and fission interactions in materials immediately surrounding the SuperCDMS detectors.
Broader impacts: The award will also fund an outreach program that will increase the public's appreciation for science. In pursuit of this goal, the educational objective is to use SuperCDMS to support secondary teachers through the QuarkNet program and create research opportunities for undergraduates at SMU. Students and postdoctoral scholars working on this project will receive strong scientific and educational preparation in the techniques of low temperature physics, high energy physics and astrophysics and the analysis of data.
