IPMU Annual Report 2011 April 2011–March 2012 IPMU ANNUAL REPORT 2011 April 2011 – March 2012 Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (IPMU) Todai Institutes for Advanced Study The University of Tokyo 5-1-5 Kashiwanoha, Kashiwa, Chiba 277-8583, Japan TEL: +81-4-7136-4940 FAX: +81-4-7136-4941 http://www.ipmu.jp/ World Premier International Research Center Initiative Printed in Japan History (April 2011–March 2012) April ● The Physical Society of Japan Publication Award to Shigeki Sugimoto ● Construction of IPMU Annex building completed May ● Architectural Institute of Japan Award to Hidetoshi Ohno, professor at Todai Graduate School of Frontier Science and the designer of IPMU Building ● Focus Week “Astrophysics of dark matter” June ● New Principal Investigator in mathematics Toshiyuki Kobayashi (Todai Graduate School of Mathematical Sciences) ● SuMIRe Collaboration Meeting for PrimeFocusSpectrograph July ● Completion of laser-guide star adaptive optics for Subaru Telescope ● External Advisory Committee meeting August ● Annual site visit of the WPI working group members ● Press release “Cosmic dust at stellar explosions—Discovery of massive dust in SN 1987A” September ● IPMU-YITP School and Workshop “Monte Carlo tools for LHC” ● The Mathematical Society of Japan Geometry Prize to Kyoji Saito ● The Mathematical Society of Japan Takebe Prize to Tomoyuki Abe October ● IPMU celebrates the 4th anniversary ● Press release “Galaxy interactions accelerate the growth of supermassive black holes” ● Workshop “Curves and categories in geometry and physics” November ● Press release “Computer simulation reveals the first stars in the universe weighed about 40 times the Sun” December ● IPMU receives “Superior” grade at the WPI interim review January ● The 2nd PrimeFocusSpectrograph Collaboration meeting ● The 6th Asian Winter School “Strings, particles and cosmology” Copyright ©IPMU Annual Report 2011 ● Press release “Independent study confirms the 2010 discovery of flat dark matter distribution All rights reserved Editorial board members and improves the precision” Kazuo Abe (chair), Masayuki Nakahata, Ken’ichi Nomoto, Kyoji Saito, Tsutomu Yanagida ● Young Scientist Award in theoretical particle physics to Masahiro Ibe Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe ● IPMU Workshop “Testing gravity with astrophysical and cosmological observations” Todai Institutes for Advanced Study, The University of Tokyo ● Press release “Missing dark matter located—Inter-galactic space is filled with dark matter” 5-1-5 Kashiwanoha, Kashiwa, Chiba 277-8583, Japan Tel: +81-4-7136-4940 Fax: +81-4-7136-4941 ● Agreement signed between NAOJ and IPMU on PrimeFocusSpectrograph http://www.ipmu.jp February ● Mini workshop “Physics at SuperKEKB” Design: aha co., ltd. http://www.a-ha.co.jp/ ● Todai announcement of IPMU becoming Kavli IPMU ● IPMU Conference “Growing black holes in COSMOS” ● Inoue Science Prize for Young Scientist to Masaomi Tanaka ● Sloan Research Fellowship to Brice Menard March ● IPMU Workshop “Particle physics of the dark universe” ● Yoji Totsuka Memorial Prize to Masataka Fukugita and Tsutomu Yanagida ● IAU Symposium 279 “Death of massive stars: Supernovae and gamma-ray bursts” ● The Japan Academy Award to Takaaki Kajita ● SuMIRe/PFS conceptual design review and technical group meetings IPMU Annual Report 2 011 1 1 Mission Mission In addition to these findings that there are unknown components in the universe, there are also mysteries about the components that should exist yet we don’t find. Anti-matter can be created in the laboratory and was surely created in Big Bang. Yet we do not see it in the universe. Furthermore, we know the universe is superconducting and makes certain kinds of forces short-ranged with- in a billionth of a nanometer while keeping electromagnetism and gravity long-ranged. The energy density of the superconductor should contribute about 1062% to that of the universe, which must be cancelled by yet another component at an incredible accuracy. It is natural to suspect some underlying reason which we do not know yet rather than accepting it as a lucky coincidence. Why Physics and Mathematics? The reason for the combination of physics and mathematics is quite obvious. Throughout the history of phys- ics, it was an invention of new mathematics that offered helping hand whenever a paradigm shift was inevita- ble in physics. It has been the case, and will be for the foreseeable future. Physics, being the most quantitative among sciences, relies heavily on the most advanced types of mathematics. The big challenges we face today cry out for a new paradigm of the universe, and hence new physics and new Director Hitoshi Murayama mathematics. nitial four and half years have passed since we started a mission to establish an entirely Three Experimental Approaches new institute and address fundamental questions of the universe. As far back as the his- Prof. Koshiba who won 2002 Nobel Prize in physics for detecting neutrinos from the supernova 1987A with tory goes, human beings have always pondered about the origin of the universe, how it is the Kamiokande detector demonstrated that neutrinos can be used to study the universe in a way not imag- I ined before. Furthermore the Super-Kamiokande and KamLAND experiments had discovered that ghostly structured, how it works, and where it is going. Our mission is to address these most ancient neutrinos have tiny but finite masses at the level predicted by the unified theories at 13 orders of magnitude and fundamental questions that were once studied only by pure thought by using modern tech- beyond the reach of the current accelerator experiments. Thus, the neutrino masses are giving us a precious nology and development of theoretical framework. glimpse of physics at the ultra-high energy and very early universe. It is perhaps ironic that the best way to Startup stage of the new institute is well over. We are in a creative mode and moving on with study the universe is to go underground. Underground experiments are also likely avenues to discover the dark matter of the universe. the mission, mostly sticking to the original plan but with some modifications in accordance with recent progresses that has been taking place in these research areas with rapidly increas- Looking up at the sky is undoubtedly a very essential experimental approach for exploring the universe. Both ing speed. Here let us restate our mission. in ground-based and space-based observations, we have made great strides in recent years. It is the sky obser- vation that determined the breakdown of the composition of the universe. Large-scale galaxy surveys further revolutionize our understanding of the universe. The scope of the galaxy survey using the Subaru telescope is greatly expanded due to the 2009 approval of the SuMIRe project. It combines the originally envisioned We Face Big Challenges imaging survey with a newly proposed spectroscopic survey. For centuries, humans had believed that the entire universe is made of The most direct assault on the mysteries of the universe comes from the brute-force method that tries to rec- Atoms: 4.4% the same material we are made of, Stars: 0.5% reate the Big Bang in the laboratory, namely particle accelerators. The world highest energy LHC accelerator namely atoms. In the past decade, this Neutrinos: 0.1%? is capable of mimicking the Big Bang in a “Little Bang” that brings us direct and critical information on the belief was completely overturned. The condition at the birth of the universe. The other type of accelerators operates at lower energies of particular interest but with an enormous beam intensity. High precision measurements at newly proposed SuperKEKB atoms make up less than 5% of the Dark Matter: universe. The dark matter comprises 22% Does not emit light and invisible to us, but can be sensitive to the presence of new particles and new interactions beyond the Standard Model. Any new the rest of the matter, about 22% of needed for holding the galaxies together. finding at these accelerators and figuring out their roles in the universe should be one of the most far-reaching consequence of our mission. the universe, yet we do not know what Dark Energy: it is. The remainder of about 73%is Distributed across the Universe 73% The T2K experiment that detects the neutrinos from the J-PARC accelerator at the Super-Kamiokande is a dark energy which we know even less. and responsible for the accelerated expansion. mixture of accelerator-based and underground-based approaches. It is a novel way to attack the mystery why It is thought to be responsible for the Composition of the universe we exist in the universe at all, namely the preponderance of matter over anti-matter. accelerated expansion of the universe, and its discovery had led to the 2012 Nobel Prize in Physics. 2 IPMU Annual Report 2 011 IPMU Annual Report 2 011 3 Common Threads Contents The multi-prong experimental assault on these three fronts, namely underground, sky, 1 Mission …………………………………………………………………………… 2 and accelerator, must be tied with common Mission 2 Introduction ……………………………………………………………………… 6 threads of theoretical physics, mathematics, instrumentation and applied mathematics. 3 Organization ……………………………………………………………………… 8 Theoretical physics develops the unified de- 4 Staff ………………………………………………………………………………… 12 scription of the universe based on the avail- 5 Research Program …………………………………………………………… 16 able data, and allows us to guide the future plans for next-generation experiments. Theo-