Lunch Seminars

CDMSlite: A Search for Light WIMPs

by Ritoban Thakur (Fermilab)

US/Central
F-108 (ANL, Bldg. 362)

F-108

ANL, Bldg. 362

Description
The CDMS-low-ionization-threshold-experiment was designed to measure low-energy recoils from Weakly Interacting Massive Particles of mass < 10 GeV. This experiment uses voltage-assisted Luke-Neganov amplification of the ionization-energy deposited by particle interactions, which allows us to probe for light WIMP scatters. In this talk I will describe the physics behind CDMSlite and present science results from the first run. The data were collected with a single 0.6 kg germanium detector running for 10 live days at the Soudan Underground Laboratory. A low ionization-energy threshold of 170 eVee (electron equivalent) was obtained, which allows us to constrain new WIMP-nucleon spin-independent parameter space for WIMP masses below 6 GeV.
Poster