The Cryogenic Dark Matter Search experiment, SuperCDMS (Super Cryogenic Dark Matter Search) aims at the direct detection of dark matter, looking for its elastic scattering off the nuclei of a Germanium target and observing the nuclear recoil through the induced ionization and phonon emission.  The detectors, known as iZIP (interleaved Z-sensitive Ionization Phonon) detectors, feature state-of-the-art superconducting thin films deposited on 600g germanium crystals to accurately measure information about the WIMP collisions.


The SuperCDMS experiment has been been operating at the Soudan Underground Laboratory in Minnesota with a total detector mass of ~10kg of germanium crystals. In this run, SuperCDMS has obtained the best upper limit on the WIMP-nucleus cross section for low-mass WIMPs below 6 GeV.

Current SuperCDMS limits on the spin-independent WIMP-nucleus scattering cross section (black line and orange band).


Phys.Rev.Lett. 116 (2016) 071301

In a subsequent phase, the experimental payload of SuperCDMS will be increased by a factor of 5 and the detector will be placed at a deeper site: the SNOLAB facility in Sudbury, Canada. The increased exposure and the lower experimental threshold will allow to probe the region of low-mass WIMPs and reach the neutrino floor, possibly observing coherent scattering from solar neutrinos.



The IPPP group in SuperCDMS


Dr. David G. Cerdeño (PI)

Dr. Elías López-Asamar

Marina Peñalver Martínez


Our group has contributed to the estimation of the background from cosmogenic muons for the reanalysis of the CDMS II germanium data. We have also characterised the background from gamma rays for the search for lightly-ionizing particles (LIPs) in CDMS II data.

We currently work on estimations of radioactive contaminants in the experimental setup for SuperCDMS Soudan, using a fit to the energy spectrum of gamma rays and on the study of the low-energy spectrum of gamma rays for SuperCDMS Soudan

On more theoretical grounds, we work on the  Effective Field Theory formalism for direct detection, the complementary role of targets in direct detection and the sensitivity of SuperCDMS to new neutrino physics.



Publications


List of publications from inSPIRE.


Featured recent publications


- New Results from the Search for Low-Mass Weakly Interacting Massive Particles with the CDMS Low Ionization Threshold Experiment, 10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.071301, Phys.Rev.Lett. 116 (2016) 071301 [arXiv:1509.02448].


- Improved WIMP-search reach of the CDMS II germanium data, 10.1103/PhysRevD.92.072003, Phys.Rev. D92 (2015) no.7, 072003 [arXiv:1504.05871].


- Dark matter effective field theory scattering in direct detection experiments, 10.1103/PhysRevD.91.092004, Phys.Rev. D91 (2015) no.9, 092004 [arXiv:1503.03379].