Chief Scientist Laboratories High Energy Astrophysics Laboratory
Chief Scientist: Toru Tamagawa (D.Sc.)
Research Summary
Immediately after the Big Bang, the beginning of our universe, only hydrogen and helium existed. However, nucleosynthesis in the supernova explosions over the course of 13.8 billion years led to the evolution of a world brimming with the many different elements we have today. By using satellites to detect X-rays and gamma-rays, we are observing the synthesized elements at their actual source. Our goal is to comprehensively elucidate the scenarios for the formation of the elements in the universe. We are also conducting observations of the extreme conditions near black holes and neutron stars that are unreachable on Earth, to see how far our knowledge of physics can be applied.
Main Research Fields
- Mathematical & Physical Sciences
Related Research Fields
- Engineering
- Interdisciplinary Science & Engineering
- Particle-, nuclear-, astro-physics, and related fields
- Astronomy and related fields
- Plasma science and related fields
Keywords
- Nucleosynthesis in the Universe
- Physics in Extreme Conditions
- Development of Innovative Radiation Detectors
- Promotion of Space Utilization with Small Satellites
- Space Applications of Fundamental Science
Selected Publications
- 1.
Marin, F., et al.:
"X-ray polarization evidence for a 200 years-old flare of Sgr A*"
Nature 619, 41-45 (2023). - 2.
Takeda, T., et al:
"Gas selection for Xe-based LCP-GEM detectors onboard the CubeSat X-ray observatory NinjaSat"
Journal of Instrumentation 18, C06020 (2023). - 3.
Xie, F., et al.:
"Vela pulsar wind nebula X-rays are polarized to near the synchrotron limit"
Nature 612, 658-660 (2022). - 4.
Taverna, R., et al.:
"Polarized x-rays from a magnetar"
Science 378, 646-650 (2022). - 5.
Krawczynski, H., et al.:
"Polarized x-rays constrain the disk-jet geometry in the black hole x-ray binary Cygnus X-1"
Science 378, 650-654 (2022). - 6.
Baldini, L., et al.:
"Design, construction, and test of the Gas Pixel Detectors for the IXPE mission"
Astroparticle Physics 133, 102628 (2021). - 7.
Nakahira, S.; et al.:
"MAXI/SSC All-sky maps from 0.7 keV to 4 keV"
Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan 72, 17 (2020). - 8.
Tamagawa, T., et al.:
"Multiplexing lobster-eye optics: a concept for wide-field x-ray monitoring"
Journal of Astronomical Telescopes, Instruments, and Systems 6, 025003 (2020). - 9.
Gu, L., et al.:
"Observations of a Pre-Merger Shock in Colliding Clusters of Galaxies"
Nature Astronomy 3, 838 (2019). - 10.
Kitaguchi, T., et al.:
"A convolutional neural network approach for reconstructing polarization information of photoelectric X-ray polarimeters"
Nuclear Inst. and Methods in Physics Research A 942, 162389 (2019).
Recent Research Results
Jul. 8, 2019
Galaxy clusters caught in a first kiss
Related Links
Lab Members
Principal investigator
- Toru Tamagawa
- Chief Scientist
Core members
- Tatehiro Mihara
- Senior Research Scientist
- Riichiro Nakamura
- Postdoctoral Researcher
- Amira Aoyama
- RIKEN Student Researcher M
- Tomoshi Takeda
- Student Trainee
- Makoto Sawada
- Visiting Scientist
- Wataru Iwakiri
- Visiting Scientist
- Liyi Gu
- Visiting Scientist
- Toshiki Sato
- Visiting Scientist
- Satoshi Nakahira
- Visiting Scientist
- Kazumi Asai
- Research Part-time Worker I
Contact Information
Main Research Building Room 431,
2-1 Hirosawa,
Wako, Saitama
351-0198, Japan
Email: tamagawa@riken.jp