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 […]
ILC goes Comiket
This summer the International Linear Collider made a debut in world famous “Comiket” Comic Market, held in Tokyo. Comike is the world’s largest comic convention with a history of over a quarter of a century, and is the hall of fame of the “Otaku” culture. More than half a million attendees came from all over […]
Federation beyond policy difference
A day before Japanese cabinet reshuffling, Diet members and other senior government officials took time out from their busy schedule to attend the inaugural meeting of newly formed “Federation of Diet members to promote the realisation of ILC” with a group with representatives from all political parties in Japan: Liberal Democratic party (LDP), Democratic party […]
Enjoying cool science
On the first day of a three-day weekend with a Japanese national holiday, Day of the Sea, about 300 people changed their destination from seaside to science. They enjoyed talks on cool science on a hot Saturday afternoon in Tokyo at a symposium called “Denshi-koraidah ga toku ucyu sousei no puzzle (Solving the puzzle of […]
From KEK Director’s Corner: Obituary: Yoji Totsuka, Former Director General of KEK
A personal tribute to Yoji Totsuka
Director’s Corner 17 July 2008 Barry Barish A personal tribute to Yoji Totsuka High-energy physics lost a giant in our field – and I lost a very good personal friend – when Yoji Totsuka, the former Director General of KEK, died of cancer at the age of 66 last week. I would like to pay […]
Creating polarised positron beams
Today's issue features a story from Tohru Takahashi, a particle physicist and associate professor at Hiroshima University. He is the co-author of "Big-Bang wo tsukuridase" (Making the Big-Bang), a book about the ILC.
The PosiPol2008 workshop was held from 16 to 18 June in Hiroshima, Japan. An unfamiliar word, “PosiPol” stands for “polarised positrons”, meaning that the “spins” of positrons are aligned when they meet electrons at the centre of a linear collider. The electron beam is designed to be polarised at the ILC, but according to the […]
ILC physics subgroup meeting at KEK
Today's issue features a story from Keisuku Fujii, a particle physicist, who is a member of the ILC group in KEK.
On May 31 we had a meeting of our ILC physics subgroup, which is a mixture of experimentalists and theorists working in Japan. The meeting was the fifth in a series that started about a year ago, and each time 20 to 30 people got together to monitor and discuss the direction of the subgroup’s […]
New forum for promotion of advanced accelerator technology and scienceForum meets in Tokyo
On June 11, the executive officers of leading Japanese companies, important dignitaries, and a physics Nobel Prize winner gathered at Kasumigaseki, Tokyo, Japan to celebrate the establishment of a forum for promotion of advanced accelerator technology and science (official English name yet to be determined). The forum aims to develop the structure which will be […]
Kamisama no Puzzle – Accelerator goes Japanese movie
Accelerators have featured in some movies, Terminator 3, for example. But people outside of the physics world did not notice much. In this summer, cult director Takashi Miike will make the accelerator quite visible in his newest film “Kamisama no Puzzle” (God’s Puzzle). Miike, who allegedly influenced Quentin Tarantino, is best known for his grotesque […]