Abstract:

In recent decades astronomers and physicists have accumulated a vast array of evidence that the bulk of the universe's matter is in some non-baryonic form that remains undetected by electromagnetic means. This "dark matter" resides in diffuse halos surrounding galaxies and other cosmic structures. Particle theorists have proposed a wide array of candidates for its nature. One particularly promising class of candidates are Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs): quanta with masses of order 100 GeV/c2 and interactions characteristic of the weak nuclear force.

The Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS) experiment seeks to directly detect the rare elastic interactions of galactic WIMPs with terrestrial nuclei. To this end, CDMS operates an array of crystalline Ge and Si particle detectors in Soudan Underground Laboratory in northern Minnesota. These crystals are operated at millikelvin temperatures and instrumented to measure the ionization and athermal phonons generated by each particle interaction. This combination provides a powerful two-fold discrimination against the interactions of particles generated by radioactive decay and cosmogenic showers.

This dissertation describes the commissioning, analysis, and results of the first WIMP-search data runs of the CDMS experiment with its full complement of 5 "Towers" of detectors. These data represent a substantial increase in target mass and exposure over previous CDMS results. The results of this work place the most stringent limits yet set upon the WIMP-nucleon spin-independent cross section for WIMP masses above ~ 44 GeV/c2 , as well as setting competitive limits on spin-dependent WIMP-nucleon interactions. This work also outlines the larger context of this and other probes of the WIMP theory of dark matter, as well as some current development efforts toward a larger cryogenic experiment.