The Road to Zeptobarn Dark Matter and Beyond
Sunil Golwala, Assistant Professor of Physics, Caltech
Approximately 80% of the matter in the universe is believed to be in the form of dark matter. Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) are an excellent particle candidate for the dark matter. A wide range of techniques are being used to search for WIMP dark matter scattering with normal matter with sensitivity currently reaching 10-44 cm2 (10 zeptobarns) WIMP-nucleon cross section. The next generation of experiments will reach 1 zeptobarn. Plans are in the works to reach 0.01 zeptobarns and below, testing most of supersymmetric WIMP parameter space. We review the current state of WIMP searches, report on recent results for the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search experiment, and discuss the future for CDMS and other techniques.