CDMS II is currently running 30 detectors one half mile underground in the Soudan mine of northern Minnesota.  The experiment is leading the world in sensitivity for direct detection of WIMPs, and by the end of 2007 we will achieve an additional factor of 10 in sensitivity.  The interest is high because the identification of dark matter would be a major discovery for both astrophysics & cosmology and particle physics.  Prof. Cabrera is Co-Spokesperson for 12 institution collaboration.

SuperCDMS 25 kg Experiment is under review and will increase the sensitivity a factor of 10 beyond CDMS-II and a factor of 100 beyond the current sensitivity.  The detectors are fabricated at Stanford, and we have been responsible for the detector design advances to better reject backgrounds.

There are also two smaller scale efforts to develop optical photon detectors and x-ray detectors for imaging applications in ground based and space based astrophysics measurements.  These are based on the very successful superconducting transition-edge sensor detector technology developed for the dark matter searches.  The optical detectors record the arrival time to sub-microsec absolute accuracy, and the energy to 0.15 eV FWHM.  These detectors are used for observations of fast variable sources like pulsars and black hole binaries.  The x-ray detector development is aimed at imaging detectors where the position and energy of each event are recorded using phonon mediated detectors which are miniature versions of the dark matter detectors.

Rotation Projects:

(1) SuperCDMS - there is room for two long term graduate students joining the group over the next year.  We will take two more rotation students during winter and spring quarters.  Rotation will involve learning about all aspects of experiment and contributing to one or more areas including detector operation, data analysis and MC simulations.

(2) Optical / X-Ray - with NASA science funding decreases, the future is more uncertain, but we will take one rotation student during winter and spring quarters.  Rotation will involve learning about detector operations and contributing to lab testing.

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