PRELIMINARY LIMITS ON THE WIMP-NUCLEON CROSS-SECTION FROM THE CRYOGENIC DARK-MATTER SEARCH (CDMS)

We are conducting an experiment to search for WIMPs. or weakly-interac ting massive particles, in the galactic halo using terrestrial detecto rs. This generic class of hypothetical particles, whose properties are similar to those predicted by extensions of the standard model of par ticle physics, could comprise the cold component of non-baryonic dark matter. We describe our experiment. which is based on cooled germanium and silicon detectors in a shielded low-background cryostat. The dete ctors achieve a high degree of background rejection through the simult aneous measurement of the energy in phonons and ionization, Using expo sures on the order of one kilogram day from initial runs of our experi ment, we have achieved (preliminar) upper limits on the WIMP-nucleon c ross section that are comparable to much longer runs of other experime nts.