News

Simon Madrzyk and Correntin Bourdier (Grenoble INP Phelma, France) have completed their 4-month internship since May. Mami Morinaga, a second-year master’s student, has also completed her master’s thesis after a recent presentation!

Mami authored a master’s thesis in LiteBIRD entitled “Analytical computation of systematic errors of detector gain for CMB full-sky polarization observations”. She conducted research on a method to estimate systematic errors faster than commonly performed time-ordered data analysis by analytically treating systematic errors using advanced mathematics.
She will be employed by a general company in the future, and we look forward to her further success.

Simon and Kiyoshi (2nd year M.S. student) of our lab worked on “Development of Foreground Radiation Removal for CMB Polarization Observation”, and Correntin and Yuya (3rd year Ph.D. student) worked on “Development of High Precision Polarization Light Source” as internship research.

In their final research presentation, they gave a presentation summarizing the results of the four months and deepened the discussion among the lab members. At the end of August, we held a farewell party and had them enjoy Japanese food at an izakaya. We support them both in their future endeavors!

At the request of Prof. Nogami, head of the Department of Physics, Mami Morinaga (2nd year master’s student) who is in our lab wrote an article as a transfer student to Okayama University. The following is a comment from Mami.

I was previously at another private university, but I transferred to Okayama University and gained many valuable experiences.
In particular, I am able to do the cosmology, which I have always wanted to do, here in the Ishino lab.
I hope that those who want to come to Okayama University to study physics (especially those who want to do cosmology) will read this article.

I would like to thank Prof. Nogami, for featuring my transfer experience in this article.

Link to article: Message from a Senior (Mami Morinaga, 2020)

Okayama University publishes a public relations magazine called “Icho namiki” three times a year, introducing various aspects of Okayama University.

The 106th issue, published in early August 2024, features the activities of Yusuke Takase, a member of our laboratory, and introduces his research and the reason why he decided to pursue a career in universe!
(Click here for the link to Yusuke’s article)

We would like to take this opportunity to thank the writer, photographer, Icho namiki production company, and the University’s PR division for coming to interview him in mid-May, and for their thorough discussions that resulted in a wonderful article. Thank you very much.

The 7th Particle Physics Computing Summer School was held at the KEK for five days from 29 July to 2 August 2024. (For more information on the summer school, click here: URL).

In recent years, research on elementary particles, atomic nuclei, cosmic rays and astrophysics has made great advances with the use of computers. With these developments, mastering the technology is considered essential for future research.

Three members of the Ishino Lab, Kiyoshi, Shunsuke and Mitsuhiro, participated in this school and learnt a lot about cutting-edge technologies such as multivariate analysis and machine learning. Furthermore, 40 students from other universities participated in the school and were able to deepen exchanges.

On the final day, we had the opportunity to present the results of the five days, and we could be able to fully demonstrate the results that we obtained in the school.

Kiyoshi received the presentation award (photo right), and the title of his research was ‘Development of foregrounds removal method for CMB signal extraction using convolutional neural networks’. We will continue to make use of what we learnt at this school and work even harder on our research.

A five-day LiteBIRD collaboration meeting was held at the University of British Colombia (UBC) in Vancouver, Canada, from 15-19/07/24. The climate in Vancouver was pleasant and the environment was very conducive to meetings and discussions.

Hirokazu, Yusuke, Yuya and Kiyoshi participated from Ishino Lab. Hirokazu led the discussion on systematic errors and system requirements. Yusuke explained the scanning strategy and gave talks on systematic errors in a half-wavelength plate and pointings.

Yuya (right picture) presented a poster on beam sidelobe systematic errors and Kiyoshi on foreground removal. Based on the exchange of opinions obtained, we would like to use them for further research promotion.

Samantha Stever, who joined our lab as an assistant professor in our lab in 2020 and has been involved in LiteBIRD and education for about 4.5 years, will retire from our university at the end of July 2024. She will be moving to a new job in Finland.

A farewell party was held with members of the lab, Prof. Bruno Maffei (Paris-Sclay U.), who was on a business trip, and Nicolò Raffuzzi (Ferrara U., PhD student), who was also on a business trip for a week.

Samantha has made a great contribution to the promotion of research in our lab as well as to the improvement of the students’ English skills. We will miss her, but all the members support her in her future. Thank you very much!

Prof. Bruno Maffei from the University of Pari-Saclay came to our lab. and spent about two weeks discussing the LiteBIRD and next generation of the CMB experiments. On the last day of his stay (10th of July), a colloquium was held and he gave an overview of BISOU [1], the next generation CMB balloon experiment.

BISOU will measure the frequency spectrum of the CMB with high precision and investigate the spectral distortion from the blackbody emission. The spectrum of CMB has not been measured for 30 years since the FIRAS, instrument of COBE satellite led by NASA.

If the the spectral distortion can be measured, it is expected to reveal how energy behaved in the early universe and provide new insights into the thermal history of the universe.

Reference
[1] B. Maffei te al., “BISOU: a balloon project to measure the CMB spectral distortions”, arXiv:2111.00246

Hirokazu/Yusuke/Yuya/Kiyoshi/Shunsuke attended the LiteBIRD simulation hands-on meeting held at KEK/QUP in Tsukuba. Domestic and international LiteBIRD collaborators in charge of foreground removal and systematics simulations gathered to discuss and share the software they have developed.

Hirokazu gave a status report on LiteBIRD systematic errors.
Yusuke (left) and Yuya (right) also gave presentations and deepened their knowledge with overseas researchers.

Anaïs Besnard (2nd from left) from University of Paris Saclay, France and Corentin Bourdier (4th from back right), Simon Madrzyk (1st from right) from Grenoble INP Phelma visited our lab!

Anaïs will be in the lab for two weeks working on LiteBIRD, and Simon, Correntin, and others will be in the lab until early September for internships.

I traveled to the Laboratoire AstroPaticule & Cosmologie in Paris.
Here, I collaborated with Guillaume Patanchon (left photo), who is playing an important role in the LiteBIRD project.
I also visited the University of Paris-Saclay, where Samantha (Assistant prof. in our lab.) is visiting.
Here she is evaluating the performance of a superconducting detector using a proton accelerator (right photo).

I was able to concentrate on my research in the wonderful Parisian environment.
I hope to publish a paper on the results as soon as possible!!