CAREER: Increasing the Dark Matter Science Reach of the SuperCDMS Experiment

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The nature of dark matter is one of the most important research topics in physics today. It pertains to fundamental unanswered questions in particle physics, astrophysics, and cosmology. This award will enable a probe of a very interesting new region of theoretical phase space for viable Weakly Interacting Massive Particle (WIMP) candidates in the search for dark matter in order to improve our understanding of it: what it is, where it is, how it interacts with Standard Model particles, and what its role is in the evolution and fate of the universe. The research objective is to either measure a dark matter signal or set a limit on the WIMP-nucleon cross-section for a 60 GeV WIMP mass. This will be reached through the PI's work as a member of the Cold Dark Matter Search (CDMS) collaboration. The approach is to improve the efficiency and to reduce the lower energy threshold of their current detectors to obtain a factor of 2 increase in the science reach of the experiment, and to implement new higher-performance, more massive detectors for the next phase of SuperCDMS. The Broader Impacts of this project include increasing the pool of under-represented minority applicants to graduate programs in physics and astronomy. The approach is to increase the exposure of these students to opportunities in research through a summer program at MIT. The PI will work with HBCUs and HSIs to bring talented students for a summer of research, journal club presentations, networking with MIT minority graduate students, and outreach to local high schools in the Boston community. Research in the physics of high-resolution low-temperature detectors and new analysis techniques have applications in other fields such as astrophysics, nuclear physics, and solid-state physics.