Annual Report Volume 21 Fiscal 2018
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ISSN 1346-1192 Annual Report of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan Volume 21 Fiscal 2018 Cover Caption This image shows the galaxy cluster MACS J1149.5+2223 taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and the inset image is the galaxy MACS1149-JD1 located 13.28 billion light- years away observed with ALMA. Here, the oxygen distribution detected with ALMA is depicted in green. Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, W. Zheng (JHU), M. Postman (STScI <http://www.stsci.edu/>), the CLASH Team, Hashimoto et al. Postscript Publisher National Institutes of Natural Sciences National Astronomical Observatory of Japan 2-21-1 Osawa, Mitaka-shi, Tokyo 181-8588, Japan TEL: +81-422-34-3600 FAX: +81-422-34-3960 https://www.nao.ac.jp/ Printer Kyodo Telecom System Information Co., Ltd. 4-34-17 Nakahara, Mitaka-shi, Tokyo 181-0005, Japan TEX: +81-422-46-2525 FAX: +81-422-46-2528 Annual Report of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan Volume 21, Fiscal 2018 Preface Saku TSUNETA Director General I Scientific Highlights April 2018 – March 2019 001 II Status Reports of Research Activities 01. Subaru Telescope 048 02. Nobeyama Radio Observatory 053 03. Mizusawa VLBI Observatory 056 04. Solar Science Observatory (SSO) 061 05. NAOJ Chile Observatory (NAOJ ALMA Project / NAOJ Chile) 064 06. Center for Computational Astrophysics (CfCA) 067 07. Gravitational Wave Project Office 070 08. TMT-J Project Office 072 09. JASMINE Project Office 075 10. RISE (Research of Interior Structure and Evolution of Solar System Bodies) Project Office 077 11. Solar-C Project Office 078 12. Astronomy Data Center 080 13. Advanced Technology Center (ATC) 082 14. Public Relations Center 089 15. Division of Optical and Infrared Astronomy 095 16. Division of Radio Astronomy 097 17. Division of Solar and Plasma Astrophysics 100 18. Division of Theoretical Astronomy 101 19. Office of International Relations 104 III Organization 105 IV Finance 126 V KAKENHI (Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research) 127 VI Research Collaboration 128 VII Graduate Education 130 VIII Public Access to Facilities 135 IX Overseas Travel 139 X Award Winners 140 XI Library, Publications 141 XII Important Dates 142 XIII Publications, Presentations 1. Refereed Publications 146 2. Publications of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan 164 3. Report of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan 165 4. Conference Proceedings 165 5. Publications in English 170 6. Conference Presentations 170 PREFACE Saku TSUNETA Director General of NAOJ In 2018, NAOJ celebrated its 30th anniversary. Over these up observation support from the wide field-of-view Subaru three decades Japanese astronomy and world astronomy have Telescope. seen great development. Now the new trends are observational research crossing the traditional boundaries between ALMA wavelengths, unified research between observations and In ALMA, the 7th open-use observations (Cycle 6) started theory, and multi-messenger astronomy including gravitational in October 2018. The number of observation proposals wave and neutrino observations. In this dynamically submitted from around the world increased from Cycle 5 to changing field of study, NAOJ decided to combine the former 1836 in total. Cycle 6, like Cycle 5, achieved stable operation Division of Optical and Infrared Astronomy, Division of and reached a total of 4000 hours of observation time using Radio Astronomy, Division of Solar and Plasma Physics, the 12 meter diameter antennas. In addition, the observation and Division of Theoretical Astronomy to form the new capabilities have been continuously enhanced through Division of Science. In addition, aiming to open a new era improvements such as circular polarization observation of astronomy, we reconsidered the definition of “projects” at capability for bands 3~7 and the newly offered band 8 stand- NAOJ to promote the inauguration of new projects based on alone Atacama Compact Array observations. We have seen novel ideas. We received many responses to our call for new a growth in publications comparable to the Hubble Space project proposals. We have high hopes that from among these Telescope; in the approximately seven-and-a-half years up there will emerge projects that will carry NAOJ into the future. through FY 2018 the total number of papers published using We established the DG’s Fund to support still germinating ALMA data reached 1,379. In terms of total number of papers, research and development research as well. We announced the Japan placed second, losing only to the United States. first NAOJ Young Researchers Award and revised the criteria for the Director General’s Prize. Together these changes create In FY 2018, we saw new development in the research of the a system to reward young researchers and employees who earliest galaxies in the Universe. The greatly redshifted 88 support the activities of NAOJ. Currently as of April 1, 2019 micrometer wavelength emission line of ionized oxygen was women comprise 14 % of the NAOJ research faculty, but detected in a galaxy 13.28 billion light-years away (z = 9.11), efforts are continuing to encourage female researchers. Finally breaking simultaneously the records for the most distant the Science Strategy Committee was established as a place to detection of oxygen and the most distant galaxy observed discuss NAOJ’s future plans, while committees which have by high-precision spectroscopy. Combining these results become obsolete have been disbanded. In these ways, NAOJ with other observations such as infrared showed that in this has continued to evolve as an active organization. galaxy star formation had already started approximately 250 million years after the birth of the Universe. This result brings KAGRA us closer to the era of the formation of the first stars in the Commissioning continued at KAGRA, the Large-scale Universe. Cryogenic Gravitational Wave Telescope being constructed through collaboration led by the Institute for Cosmic Ray ALMA’s highest frequency band (band 10) receivers, Research of the University of Tokyo and including NAOJ and developed at NAOJ with cooperation from the National the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization KEK, Institute of Information and Communications Technology with the goal of starting observations in FY 2019. Experience (NICT), produced their first observational results. gained from TAMA300 built in Mitaka Campus in the 1990’s Observations of a gas cloud surrounding massive protostars and the technology of the Advanced Technology Center detected 695 spectral lines emitted from various molecules. contributed to the important components developed at NAOJ, This is 10 times more spectral lines than detected by the including low frequency vibration isolators, large-scale optical European Space Agency (ESA) Herschel Space Observatory baffles, and a transmitted light monitoring system. which observed the same region at the same frequency range, demonstrating the vast improvement in observation The American LIGO and European VIRGO improved capability enabled by the band 10 receivers. The molecules performance following the O2 observing run, and the two detected this time include the simplest sugar related molecule, LIGO detectors achieved a maximum detection distance for glycolaldehyde, providing important clues to elucidate the binary neutron star mergers of better than 100 megaparsecs. (A chemical composition in massive-star forming regions. megaparsec is 3.26 million light-years.) They are expected to detect many binary black hole mergers and binary neutron star In research related to organic molecules, we must mention the mergers during the O3 observing run which starts from April discovery of various organic molecules, including methanol of 2019. We are looking forward to great progress in multi- and acetaldehyde, around a young star which has experienced messenger astronomy through the addition of KAGRA with a sudden increase in brightness. These molecules, released its unique subterranean site and cryogenic mirrors and follow- by the sublimation of ice caused by the sudden increase in brightness, would be very difficult to observe under normal FY 2018 was marked by various natural disasters including conditions. This is an important result for elucidating the earthquakes and hurricanes, resulting in the loss of valuable composition of ices in protoplanetary disks which are the observing time. Through the efforts of the observatory staff, birthplaces of planets. we pulled through these difficult times and have been able to continue open-use observations. Even though HSC Subaru High resolution imaging observations of many protoplanetary Strategic Program observations were suspended for about half disks also continued. Not only concentric ring structures a year as a result, HSC has continued to demonstrate its ability but also spiral structures and uneven dust distributions were to produce numerous results across a wide range of research depicted, showing clearly the diversity of protoplanetary fields. disks. This is an area to keep an eye on in the future as research seeking the origins of the diversity seen in exoplanet Another prime focus instrument, in addition to HSC, the systems. Prime Focus Spectrograph (PFS) is being developed by a collaboration of seven countries and regions led by Kavli Preparations continue hoping to realize the ALMA2 plan. IPMU at the University of Tokyo. PFS is a revolutionary The ALMA2 plan is a project to drastically improve ALMA’s piece of equipment that has approximately