The doctor thesis of Dr.Izumi who use to be a doctorial student of NAOJ got Braccini Prize 2012 (https://wwwcascina.virgo.infn.it/StefanoBPrize2012.html ).
The award ceremony and lecture will be presented in May 24th 2013 in the
Pisa university.

Pro. Takahashi was awarded a prize for encouragement of Yamanashi Academy as a promising young researcher in the field of research, education and technology in Yamanashi prefecture.

In Jan/30/2013, the project titled “The construction of Gravitational Wave Astronomy” was selected as one of Core to Core program of JSPS. The leader is Pro.Kawamura.

Pro. Endo, the president of Toyama University visited CLIO. After that young scientists in GW group had a meeting with Pro. Endo, Pro.Moriwaki, Pro.Hirobayashi and Pro.Matsushima who are members of Toyama University at GWPO Kamioka branch building.

New Atotsu tunnel excavation has started. The excavation of Mozumi is also all right.

The blasting at the Mozumi entrance has started.

before

after

An External Review for KAGRA project was held in ICRR from 17th April to 20th. The committee chaired by Dr. Michael E. Zucker evaluated the KAGRA designs, progress, and risks of each subgroup and made some advices. We would like to make assure the success of KAGRA project with these External Review’s reports.

KAGRA project PI, Pro.Kajita was awarded a prize of the Japan Academy of
2012 for “the discovery of atmospheric neutrino oscillation”.

Yuki Susa, a member of the KAGRA collaboration at Tokyo Tech,
has been chosen as the representative of master students in
the Department of Physics. Title of his master thesis is
“Optimal signal amplification by weak measurement.”

In 28th February, A Master thesis of T.Sekiguchi got an ICRR Director Award in the ICRR Master and Doctor Thesis Workshop.
His master thesis title is “Modeling and Simulation of Vibration Isolation System”.

Thermal noise reduction in CLIO was published in Physical Review Letters.

Summary by Author T.Uchiyama.

“Thermal fluctuation, as evidenced by Brownian motion, has been a well-known phenomenon, and it remains the fundamental limitation for certain ultraprecise measurements such as interferometric gravitational wave (GW) detectors and laser frequency stabilisation using a rigid Fabry-Perot reference cavity. One promising approach for reducing such fluctuations is to use a low-mechanical-loss material at a low temperature. Here, we experimentally demonstrate for the first time a reduction in a mirror’s thermal fluctuation in a GW detector with suspended sapphire mirrors from the Cryogenic Laser Interferometer Observatory (CLIO) at 17K and 18K. The majority of previous efforts to reduce thermal fluctuations in such mirrors have focused on the use of low-loss materials at room temperature. Thus, this achievement provides a new method for overcoming the limitations by thermal fluctuations at room temperature. This cryogenic mirror technology will be used in advanced GW detectors such as KAGRA formerly called the Large-Scale Cryogenic Gravitational Wave Telescope (LCGT), the construction of which began in 2010 in Japan, and the Einstein Telescope in Europe.”

In 2011 November 5th, a lecture entitled ” Challenge to the Mystery of the Universe from Yamanashi !” will be presented by Dr. H. Takahashi and Mr. Tsugane in the Yamanashi-Eiwa school festival.
Please find in detail in,
http://www.yamanashi-eiwa.ac.jp/~hirotaka/pub_lecture/poster.pdf

The European Gravitational Observatory (EGO) and the Institute for Cosmic Ray Research (ICRR) organize a meeting, under the patronage of the Italian Embassy in Tokyo, with the aim to explore the collaboration between Italy and Japan on the Gravitational Wave research with the future interferometric detectors in Italy (advanced Virgo) and Japan(LCGT). The 3rd generation perspectives, thanks to the Einstein Telescope (ET) project will be investigated too and the ELiTES Japanese-European collaborative FP7 project, between ET and LCGT, will be prepared.

Place:
University of Tokyo, Kashiwa-campus, Frontier Sciences, Environmental Studies Building, 1st Floor, SF Hall.
(http://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/campusmap/cam03_01_06_e.html)

Conference Page :
Here(http://www.icrr.u-tokyo.ac.jp/gr/Italy-Japan_program.pdf).

Dr.Miyakawa (ICRR.UT staff) will give a lecture in Nagoya University GCOE program named as “Quest for fundamental principles in the universe”.
The title is “Detection of gravitational waves from underground in Kamioka-mine”.
Please see this page in detail.

Yoko Ogawa-san who is a japanese famous novelist kindly accepted to be a chairman of a LCGT naming committee, and selected a new hypocrism for LCGT project from about 630 applications. We are very sorry, but please wait until around August~September 2011 for public announcement about this new hypocrism.

An explanatory meeting about LCGT vacuum ducts temporary stock in the Kamioka-railway tunnels will be held in Higashimozumi, Kamioka-cho, Hida-city in 18th May.

A meeting for LCGT new name selection was put off due to 3.11 earthquake will be held in 16th June 2011.

Students and their teachers of Sizhuoka-Kita high school visited Super-Kamiokand, XMASS and CLIO as an event of Super Science High school (SSH). In the morning, they received lectures about SK, XMASS, CLIO and their related physics of neutrino, dark matter, gravitational waves. In the afternoon, they entered the Kamioka mine and visited each facilities.

An explanatory meeting about LCGT vacuum ducts temporary stock in the Kamioka-railway tunnels will be held in Urushiyama, Kamioka-cho, Hida-city in 22nd April.

Gravitational Wave Project Office was established in April 1st 2011.

Gravitational Wave Project Office will be established in April 1st 2011.

An Emeritus professor of Tokyo-toritsu University Ikemoto and members of ABCEJ visited Super-Kamiokande, XMASS and CLIO. The members of ABCEJ are mainly private middle school and high school chemistry teachers around Tokyo.

LCGT MOUs between LIGO and VIRGO were formally concluded.

Mainichi newspaper wrote up the new name application for LCGT.

Physics today Journal wrote up LCGT on the 35th page in December issue.

Staff of Italy embassy visited CLIO with Desalva-sensei.

“Thermal-noise-limited underground interferometer CLIO” was selected as an oustanding article in the Classical and Quantum Gravity hilight of 2009-2010.

The film about the construction of LCGT has started.

The department chief of the academic organization section of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan visited CLIO. Professor Jim Hough who is one of leader of GEO600 also visited CLIO.

Technical staff and postdoctoral researche recuruiting has started.

Yoko Ogawa-sensei　who is a famous award-winning novelist agreed to be a chairman to decide the new LCGT name.

An assistant researcher recruiting has started.

” A key to understand the Universe – Gravitational Wave detection” by a LCGT collaborator, Dr. Kentaro Somiya was introduced

LCGT call for a new charming name!

A public lecture about LCGT will be held in November 27th. This lecture is one of the National University Festa.

University of Tokyo, Executive Management Program students (20) visited CLIO.

The President of the University of Tokyo, Professor Hamada and the regent of the University of tokyo, Professor Kozima visited CLIO.

Professor Takeda and Assistant Professor Miyamaru and their students (Shinshu University, Department of Science, Physics division, Solid state physics division) visited CLIO.