Why our Universe was bone and how it developed into the present state? Since its birth at the Big Bang, the Universe has experienced various drastic events. Because the Universe is not a stable object, we have to understand and explain the present state as a consequence of dynamical processes the Universe has experienced. Though many events in the History of the Universe have been clarified, many pieces are still missing to understand our Universe today.
Tomonaga Center for the History of the Universe (TCHoU) was founded in October 2017 as a research center at the University of Tsukuba. The mission of the Center is to clarify the genesis of the Universe as well as the origin of matter and life and to construct an integrated view of the History of the Universe, through international and interdisciplinary collaboration of particle, nuclear, and astrophysics as well as resonant cooperation of experimental and theoretical approaches.
Towards this goal, the center has established the following four research divisions:
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Visit [About the Center] for an overview of the Center.
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Visit [Projects] for the research projects of the Center.
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Visit [Organization] for the organization and members of the Center.
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Visit [Materials] for introductory materials and reports.
The name Tomonaga Center comes from Dr. Sin-Itiro Tomonaga, the second Nobel Laureate from Japan, who made fundamental contributions in constructing relativistic quantum field theories, the renormalization theory, theory of collective motions, etc. and also a founder of the physics institute at Tsukuba.
Visit Tomonaga Memorial Room, Univ. Tsukuba and Tomonaga Exibition at the University of Tsukuba Gallery for more information about Dr. Tomonaga.
(Photo: Tomonaga Memorial Room)
We made a meeting of the research members of the Tomonaga Center for the History of the Universe, followed by reports on main achievements of each field in the first period of FY 2020.
Contact: Asso.Prof. Y. Takeuchi
Assistant Professor Takashi Iida, Div. of Elementary Particles, received the "8th Best Young Exploratory Joint Research Award" from the Institute for Materials Research, Tohoku University. This award motivates young researchers who have achieved excellent results in joint use and joint research at the Institute for Materials Research, Tohoku University, to support further research development, and to develop the field of materials science research.
Observation of double beta decay without neutrinos emission is a very important study in elementary particle. If discovered, it can theoretically explain the fact that the universe is made of matter, not antimatter. A detector with high energy resolution is indispensable for the search for this double beta decay. Therefore, a scintillator containing double beta decay nuclei (48Ca, 96Zr, 160Gd, etc.), with a large amount of light emission and high resolution was developed in collaboration with Yoshikawa Laboratory of the Institute of Metallic Materials, Tohoku University, which has a high technologies in scintillator crystal development.
As a result, they succeeded in developing a scintillator called CaI2, and achieved a large emission amount (107,000 [ph./MeV]) and high resolution about 10 times that of commonly used plastic scintillators. In addition, by irradiating the CaI2 scintillator with α / γ rays and examining the waveform, the high particle identification ability of CaI2 was clarified for the first time. Furthermore, the development of a Ca (Brx, I1-x)2 scintillator in which iodine (I) of CaI2 is partially replaced with bromine (Br) and performance evaluation of a scintillator called (Ce0.005, La0.245, Gd0. 75)2Si2O7 including 160Gd was performed. The above research results and their future potential have been highly evaluated, and they have received this award. Currently, they are conducting research toward the practical application of the developed crystals, and developing a new Zr-containing scintillator.
The International Workshop on Vertex Detectors (VERTEX) is a major annual series of international workshops for physicists and engineers from the high energy and nuclear physics community. VERTEX provides an international forum to exchange the experiences and needs of the community, and to review recent, ongoing, and future activities on silicon based vertex detectors. The workshop covers a wide range of topics: existing and future detectors, new developments, radiation hardness, simulation, tracking and vertexing, electronics and triggering, applications to medical and other fields.
The 29th edition of the series VERTEX2020 will be held on October 5th-8th 2020 virtually by video conferencing.
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Reports from the four major groups at the CERN LHC and the KEK-Belle group will cover the operation of the existing and upgrade detectors. In addition, two sessions discussing on the monolithic detectors and timing detectors are scheduled. The workshop will be closed by Prof.Ian Shipsey of the ICFA chair of Instrumentation Innovation and Development Panel.
This workshop was organized by the committee headed by Asso.Prof. Hara, leader of the Division of Photon and Particle Detectors of the Center, and the Center co-hosts the workshop.
Contact: Asso.Prof. K. Hara
We have a meeting of the research members of the Tomonaga Center for the History of the Universe, followed by reports on main achievements of each field in the second period of FY 2019.
Contact: Asso.Prof. S. Esumi