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The search for dark matter: has CDMS found something?

CDMS project manager Dan Bauer adjusts elements of the CDMS detector.

Update: The CDMS announcement is covered in detail a newer story.

There are many rumors circulating about upcoming results from the CDMS experiment. A statement from the CDMS collaboration helps to set the record straight:

The CDMS collaboration has completed the analysis of the final CDMS-II runs, which more than doubled the total data from all previous runs combined. The collaboration is working hard to complete the first scientific publication about these new results and plans to submit the manuscript to arXiv.org before the two primary CDMS talks scheduled for Thursday, Dec. 17, at Fermilab and at SLAC.

Fermilab physicist Lauren Hsu will present a talk on the new results at Fermilab on Thursday, Dec. 17 at 4 p.m. CST. A Webcast will be available here.

Also on Dec. 17, at 2 p.m. PST, Southern Methodist University physicist Jodi Cooley, CDMS analysis coordinator, will speak at SLAC. Her talk will be Webcast on the CDMS Web site.

When collaborators opened the black box nearly two years ago they didn’t see any candidates for dark matter particles, but they did set the world’s best constraints on the properties of dark matter candidates, another step forward in the search.

The CDMS experiment is located a half-mile underground in the Soudan Underground Laboratory in northern Minnesota, shielded from cosmic rays and other particles that could mimic the signals expected from dark matter particles.

Learn more about dark matter and the CDMS experiment on this FAQ Web page from the 2008 press release. An article in symmetry magazine features Jodi Cooley and explains how scientists use the CDMS experiment to listen for whispers of dark matter.

View photos and video related to the CDMS experiment in the CDMS image gallery from 2008.