Newsline

Author archive: Rika Takahashi

New ILC Communicator for Asia

| 19 February 2009 “I am very much honoured to be given this opportunity to work with the ILC communicators and to be involved in promoting a science project of this scale,” said Misato Hayashida. A fourth ILC communicator has joined the Global Design Effort. Misato Hayashida, based at KEK, will be sharing the Asian communication duties with Rika Takahashi and will closely collaborate with her European colleagues, Perrine Royole-Degieux (CNRS/IN2P3) and Barbara Warmbein (DESY). Category: Feature | Tagged: ,

Korea to build new science and business city

| 29 January 2009 Since the leadership of its President Lee Myung-bak, Korea has placed high value on science and technology. On 13 January, the government officially signed a contract for a big project to build an international science and business belt that includes the establishment of a new institute, the Asian Basic Science Institute (ABSI), and the construction of a Rare Isotope Accelerator. Category: Around the World | Tagged: ,

From four to six quarks in a month and a half

| 15 January 2009 Toshihide Maskawa is one of the most popular public figures in Japan at the moment. He has charmed many Japanese people with his humour and pure passion for the science that he showed at the press conference after he won the 2008 Nobel prize in physics, together with Yoichiro Nambu, professor emeritus at Chicago University, and Makoto Kobayashi, honorary professor emeritus at KEK. Category: Feature | Tagged: ,

Beauty lies within

| 11 December 2008 The inner surfaces of the niobium cavities for the International Linear Collider have to be polished to literally sparkle, since the smallest defects, such as bumps, pits, welding flaws or human-induced scratches on them are considered to be dominantly responsible for the deterioration of the cavity performance and can even lead to quenches and field emission. Many techniques and technologies have been studied and developed already to address this challenge. At the end of November, the first prototype of a new gadget developed with different approach was delivered to KEK. Category: Feature | Tagged: ,

Understanding something new — interview with Makoto Kobayashi

| 26 November 2008 It has been hectic days for Makoto Kobayashi, Professor emeritus at KEK, since 7 October, the announcement of 2008 Nobel Prize in physics. Now that one month has passed, Kobayashi finally gets to settle down a little (or he has gotten used to keeping up with a demanding schedule), he shared his time to talk about the future of accelerator science with ILC NewsLine. Category: Feature | Tagged: ,

Understanding something new interview with Makoto Kobayashi

| 26 November 2008 This interview was originally done for November issue of the "ILC Tsushin", the Japanese newsletter for non-scientific readers. Category: Around the World | Tagged: ,

Asian ILC researchers gathered in Korea

| 23 October 2008 From 29 to 30 September, the second Asia ILC R&D Seminar was held at Kyungpook National University (KNU) in Korea with help from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Core University Program and the Korea Science and Engineering Foundation. This workshop aimed to review the progress of R&D for the ILC accelerator in Asia region, and to promote regional and inter-regional collaborations on the accelerator and active participations from individual countries to ILC, focusing on the installation schedule and preparation for commissioning. Category: Feature | Tagged: , ,

2008 Nobel Prize goes to particle physics

| 9 October 2008 This year's Nobel Prize in physics was awarded to a Japanese-born American and two Japanese particle physicists: Yoichiro Nambu, professor emeritus at University of Chicago, for the discovery of the mechanism of spontaneous broken symmetry in subatomic physics, Makoto Kobayashi, professor emeritus at KEK and executive director of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, and Toshihide Maskawa, professor at Kyoto Sangyo University in Kyoto, for the discovery of the origin of the broken symmetry which predicts the existence of at least three families of quarks in nature. Category: Around the World | Tagged: ,

World beam test tour at Fermilab

| 2 October 2008 The International Linear Collider requires a detector with excellent performance to fully exploit its physics potential. In order to meet this challenge, significant improvements in the calorimetric performance are needed compared to previous generations of detectors, and new technologies and techniques are being developed. To test those technologies and techniques with particle beams, scientists are travelling around the world, to where beamlines with particle beams for tests are available. Category: Feature | Tagged: , , ,

Accelerator community communicates

| 25 September 2008 On Wednesday, 24 September, KEK held a symposium entitled “Starting up the world's most powerful accelerators: LHC and J-PARC” in Tokyo. This symposium was the second one in a series of symposiums aiming for gaining more understanding of accelerator science. The main audience of this symposium was the industry. “We would like to place an emphasis on the collaboration between industry, the universities and the laboratories which enable those big accelerator projects,” said Mitsuaki Nozaki, the chief organiser of the symposium. “I believe that efforts like these are essential to realise another big accelerator project in the future, such as the ILC,” he added. Category: Feature | Tagged: ,