Gravitational Wave Project Office
Establishment of Gravitational Wave Project Office
April 1, 2011
Inauguration of the Gravitational Wave Project Office
Since mid. 1990’s when a committee on future projects of Institute for Cosmic Ray Research (ICRR) published its report, the construction of a gravitational wave detector (KAGRA) to discover the gravitational wave and to initiate the gravitational wave astronomy has been the top priority future project for ICRR. In 2010, this project was approved and funded by the Japanese government. We thank all of you who have been supporting this project.
Following the approval, ICRR has established “Gravitational Wave Project Office” on April 1, 2011. The construction of KAGRA will be carried out with the initiative of this office in collaboration with the collaborators in Japan and abroad. We sincerely appreciate your continuing strong support.
Takaaki Kajita
Director, Institute for Cosmic Ray Research
PI, KAGRA project
Address of Head of the Gravitational Wave Peoject Branch
April 1, 2011
Opening of Gravitational Wave Project Office
The Greavitational Wave Project Office has been opened in ICRR on 1st, April. This office is temporarilly located in Kashiwa campus until the beginning of fiscal year of 2013, when the construction of the gravitational wave detector will become active at Kamioka site where the detector will be constructed. During this temporary term, the Kamioka branch of this office conducts the project at Kamioka area.
After the funding of this gravitational wave project last year, we conducted detector design detail, budgetary plan, manpower organization, and preparation for excavation of underground, by supports of the research facility of ICRR, the adminsitation office of the University of Tokyo, and others. Especially, this project is promoted under supports by High Energy Research Organization (KEK) and National Astronomical Observatory, Japan (NAOJ), reflecting the fact that this gravitational wave project has been conceived and presented in collaboration with researchers belonging to various research organizations such as universities and national research laboratories in and out of Japan. The project office makes these acitivities visible to all concerned.
This gravitational wave project is the large science one that had been waited for long time for its realization by our collaboration members and foreign researchers in overseas and also by researchers of neighboring fields of cosmic ray and astrophysics. This is the second project in Japan in the field of cosmic ray and astrophysics after ALMA project since SuperKamiokande and SUBARU telescope projects that started in 1991. We are going to condcut the project in this Office to achieve the objective of gravitational wave project against possible difficulties.
Kazuaki Kuroda
Head of the Gravitational Wave Peoject Office
ICRR
Address of Head of Gravitational Wave Project Office Kamioka Branch
Inauguration of the Kamioka branch of Gravitational Wave Peoject Office (GWPO).
We have come a long hard way, and, finally, we are ready to start the construction of a large interferometer in a tunnel stretching in total of 6 km to probe the universe. The encouragement of the local community was invaluable for us to overcome many problems to open the door for tomorrow.
We sincerely appreciate the continued support by the local community for
the success of this great, and very challenging, project.
Head of Kamioka Branch of GWPO
Masatake Ohashi
