Direct Dark Matter Searches with CDMS and XENON

The Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS) and XENON experiments aim to directly detect dark matter in the form of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) via their elastic scattering on the target nuclei. The experiments use different techniques to suppress background event rates to the minimum, and at the same time, to achieve a high WIMP detection rate. The operation of cryogenic Ge and Si crystals of the CDMS-II experiment in the Soudan mine yielded the most stringent spin-independent WIMP-nucleon cross-section (~10^{-43} cm^2) at a WIMP mass of 60 GeV/c^2. The two-phase xenon detector of the XENON10 experiment is currently taking data in the Gran Sasso underground lab and promising preliminary results were recently reported. Both experiments are expected to increase their WIMP sensitivity by a one order of magnitude in the scheduled science runs for 2007.Comment: appears in the proceedings of the 36th COSPAR Scientific Assembly in Beijing, July 200

Cryogenic Dark Matter Searches

In the decades-old quest to uncover the nature of the enigmatic dark matter, cryogenic detectors have reached unprecedented sensitivities. Searching for tiny signals from dark matter particles scattering in materials cooled down to low temperatures, these experiments look out into space from deep underground. Their ambitious goal is to discover non-gravitational interactions of dark matter and to scan the allowed parameter space until interactions from solar and cosmic neutrinos are poised to take over