RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Dark Matter Search Results from the CDMS II Experiment
JF Science
JO Science
FD American Association for the Advancement of Science
SP 1619
OP 1621
DO 10.1126/science.1186112
VO 327
IS 5973
A1 ,
YR 2010
UL http://science.sciencemag.org/content/327/5973/1619.abstract
AB Dark matter is thought to represent 85% of all matter in the universe and to have been responsible for the formation of structure in the early universe, but its nature is still a mystery. Ahmed et al. (p. 1619, published online 11 February; see the Perspective by Lang) describe the results from the completed Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS II) experiment, which searched for dark matter in the form of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMP). Two candidate signals were observed, whereas only one background event was expected. The probability of having two or more events from the background would have been 23%. The results of this analysis cannot be interpreted with confidence as evidence for WIMP interactions, but, at the same time, neither event can be ruled out as representing signal.Astrophysical observations indicate that dark matter constitutes most of the mass in our universe, but its nature remains unknown. Over the past decade, the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS II) experiment has provided world-leading sensitivity for the direct detection of weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) dark matter. The final exposure of our low-temperature germanium particle detectors at the Soudan Underground Laboratory yielded two candidate events, with an expected background of 0.9 ± 0.2 events. This is not statistically significant evidence for a WIMP signal. The combined CDMS II data place the strongest constraints on the WIMP-nucleon spin-independent scattering cross section for a wide range of WIMP masses and exclude new parameter space in inelastic dark matter models.