Collaborative Research: The SuperCDMS at SNOLAB Science Program

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This award supports the base research program of the SuperCDMS SNOLAB experiment that will address one of the most fundamental questions of modern science—the nature of dark matter. SuperCDMS explores a lower mass dark matter parameter space with world-leading sensitivity that is complementary to on-going searches at the Large Hadron Collider, indirect detection experiments, and direct detection experiments like LZ and XENONnT that will search for heavier-mass dark matter. The SuperCDMS SNOLAB experiment will have a broad impact that extends beyond the search for dark matter. The experiment’s phonon-mediated detectors have applications in cosmology, astronomy and industry. This effort will contribute opportunities for training of undergraduate and graduate students and postdoctoral researchers. The SuperCDMS Collaboration has a long history of outreach with a strong focus on engaging students from underrepresented groups at all educational levels. This award will enable the development of accessible analysis resources that will significantly increase the number of undergraduates involved in SuperCDMS science analysis and in particle physics analyses in general. In addition, SuperCDMS will leverage the SNOLAB outreach team by increasing participation in tour groups and SNOLAB on-site exhibits, and partner with the Colegio de F´ısica Fundamental e Interdiciplinaria de las Am´ericas (COFI) in bringing dark matter themed educational efforts to student and public audiences in Puerto Rico.The goal of the SuperCDMS Collaboration is to directly detect galactic dark matter and, in so doing, address the following questions: what is the particle nature of dark matter, what are its astrophysical properties, and how does it relate to the Standard Model? In pursuit of this goal, the Collaboration is in the process of constructing a new experiment, SuperCDMS SNOLAB, equipped with advanced cryogenic detectors that have unprecedented sensitivity to dark matter particles with masses at and below the GeV/c-squared scale, with an ultimate potential sensitivity down to dark matter-nucleon cross sections where solar neutrino-nucleus scattering becomes significant (the so-called “neutrino fog”). The experiment will be sited in SNOLAB, Sudbury, Canada.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.