Toward clarification of the History of the Universe
Why our Universe was bone and how it developed into the present state? Since its birth at the Big Bang, the Universe has experienced various drastic events. Because the Universe is not a stable object, we have to understand and explain the present state as a consequence of dynamical processes the Universe has experienced. Though many events in the History of the Universe have been clarified, many pieces are still missing to understand our Universe today.
Tomonaga Center for the History of the Universe (TCHoU) was founded in October 2017 as a research center at the University of Tsukuba. The mission of the Center is to clarify the genesis of the Universe as well as the origin of matter and life and to construct an integrated view of the History of the Universe, through international and interdisciplinary collaboration of particle, nuclear, and astrophysics as well as resonant cooperation of experimental and theoretical approaches.
Toward this goal, the center has established the following four research divisions:
- Division of Antarctic Astronomy
- Division of Elementary Particles
- Division of Quark Nuclear Matters
- Division of Photon and Particle Detectors
Please visit
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[About the Center] for an overview of the Center.
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[Projects] for the research projects of the Center.
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[Organization] for the organization and members of the Center.
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[Materials] for reports and introductory materials.
The name Tomonaga Center comes from Dr. Sin-Itiro Tomonaga, the second Nobel Laureate from Japan, who made fundamental contributions in constructing relativistic quantum field theories, the renormalization theory, theory of collective motions, etc. and also a founder of the physics institute at Tsukuba.
Visit Tomonaga Memorial Room, Univ. Tsukuba and Tomonaga Exibition at the University of Tsukuba Gallery for more information about Dr. Tomonaga.
(Photo: Tomonaga Memorial Room)
What's new
- 2025/07/08 1st TCHoU Research Member Meeting / Activity and Achievement Reports for FY2025
The meeting serves as a forum for constituent members to deliberate on the center's current activities and future policies. It also aims to facilitate the mutual sharing of research topics and the latest achievements across various fields, fostering free discussions and exchanges of opinions on the potential for interdisciplinary research. We hope participants to promote interaction among the divisions through lively discussions. Please note that the part following the overall report and deliberation by the center director will be open to participants beyond the center's constituent members.
Presentations are in Japanese.
- Date: 08 Jul (Tu)
- 9:45-10:30 Research Member Meeting, 10:30-16:30 Activity and Achievement Reports
- Venue: Univ. of Tsukuba, Natural Science Bldg. B114 + Online (Zoom hybrid)
- https://us06web.zoom.us/j/86777768210?pwd=HrYWgPz66QhetDfXxluiYYDfbig5jg.1
- Program:
09:45- Fumihiko Ukegawa Status and activity report of TCHoU Presentations are open to the public from this point forward. 10:30- Yuto Yoshida Rotating BPS M5-brane on the plane wave background 11:00- Kenta Soga Probing the Nature of Distant Lyα Emitters via Radiative Transfer Simulations 11:30- Ryuki Kashiwagi Development of a sub-millimeter-sized collector for far-infrared wavelengths for the search of cosmic background neutrino decay light> 12:00- lunch 13:30- Hiroyuki Sako (JAEA) Study of the mass modification of the phi meson in nuclear density at J-PARC 14:00- Shunsuke Honda Sub-mm Astronomy at Antarctica - Journey to the Observation Site and On-site Infrastructure Development 14:30- Hiroma Okubo Establishing a Phenomenon Separation Method Using Machine Learning and XAI 15:00- break 15:15- Yutaka Watanabe (KEK) KISS-1.5 Project - Towards elucidating the origin of heavy elements 15:45- Sayuka Kita Search for Higgs Boson Pair Production in the LHC-ATLAS experiment: Current Status and Latest Results 16:15- Nario Kuno Closing remark 16:30 adjourn
Contact: Prof. Y. Takeuchi
- 2025/07/01-02 KEK Detector R&D Platform "Silicon Detector" meeting
The KEK Detector R&D Platform "Silicon Detector" meeting will be held at the University of Tsukuba from Tuesday, July 1 to Wednesday, July 2, 2025. The goal of this workshop is to promote the activities of the platform by openly discussing current and developing detectors, detectors using new materials, advances and challenges in related technologies, and information sharing on development environments and facilities. This workshop will particularly focus on readout electronics, specifically ASICs and FPGAs, including specifications required in experiments in particle physics and related fields.
- Date: Tuesday afternoon, July 1 – Early afternoon, Wednesday, July 2
- Venue: Special Conference Room in the University Hall, University of Tsukuba
- Organizers: KEK ITDC Detector R&D Platform (semiconductor working group)
- Co-organizers:Division of Photon and Particle Detectors, Tomonaga Center for the History of Universe, University of Tsukuba
- Program: https://kds.kek.jp/event/55431/ (to be updated)
- Registration: Please register via the URL above (Deadline: Monday, June 23).
- Participation Fee: Free
Contact: Assi.Prof. S. Hirose
- 2025/06/29 Tanabata Lecture of Astronomy
Lectures by astronomers will be held near Tanabata Day. The state-of-the-art research content will be explained in an easy-to-understand manner to the general public. (in Japanese)
Click on the poster for details.
- Date： 29 June (Sunday) 13:30－16:30
- Venue: Tsukuba International Congress Center EPOCHAL, Conference room 101
- Target: General public (junior high school students and above)
- Participation fee: Free
- Program
13:30 Erika Ogata (Univ. Tokyo) "Unveiling the Evolution of the Universe and Black Holes through Simulations" 15:00 Shunsuke Honda (Univ. Tsukuba) "Astronomers on the Antarctic Expedition: The Challenges of a Polar Mission" 16:30 End
Contact: Prof. N. Kuno (TEL: 029-853-5080)
- 2025/05/31-06/01 Extension course "History of the Universe"
As an extension course of the Univ. of Tsukuba for FY2025>, we hold the course "History of the Universe" (in Japanese) for high school students.
- Date
- May 31 (Sat.), 2025, 13:30-17:00
- June 1 (Sun.), 2025, 13:30-15:45
- Venue: Kasuga Campus, Univ. Tsukuba
- Number of participants: 34
- 2020/04/20 Kids' University for Science and Technology Week
At the TCHoU, researchers in the fields of particle physics, nuclear physics, and cosmology collaborate to advance research that unifies the history of the universe—from the Big Bang to the formation of the present universe. This research aims to elucidate the dark aspects of cosmic history, such as dark matter, dark energy, and dark galaxies. As an exhibit of the Kids' University for Science and Technology Week, we introduced research on cosmic background neutrinos, Antarctic astronomy, quark-gluon plasma, the Higgs boson, and element synthesis through poster and equipment displays, as well as video screenings, so that both children and adults could enjoy them simultaneously.
- Date: 20 Apr 2025 (Sun) 13:00-17:00
- Venue: Room B107, Advanced Research building-B, Univ. Tsukuba
- URL Website at Univ. Tsukuba
Contact: Prof. F. Ukegawa
- 2025/04/05 The 2025 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics was awarded to ATLAS and ALICE Collaborations
The 2025 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics was awarded co-authors of publications based on CERN’s Large Hadron Collider Run-2 data released between 2015 and July 15, 2024, at the experimental collaborations ATLAS, CMS, ALICE and LHCb. They carried out detailed measurements of Higgs boson properties confirming the symmetry-breaking mechanism of mass generation, the discovery of new strongly interacting particles, the study of rare processes and matter-antimatter asymmetry, and the exploration of nature at the shortest distances and most extreme conditions at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider.
Members of the Division of Elementary Particles and the Division of Quark Nuclear Matters, TCHoU, have been deeply involved in the ATLAS and ALICE experiments, respectively, from their start-ups.
Visit also TSUKUBA JOURNAL, CERN news, ATLAS press statement, and ALICE announcement for more information.
- 2025/04 Member lists and pamphlets of the TCHoU have been updated.
- 2025/03/14 TCHoU Workshop by the Division of Elementary Particles
TCHoU Workshop of AY 2024 on Particle Physics, organized by the Division of Elementary Particles, is held as follows. This workshop is free to access. Talks are given in Japanese.
- Date: March 14 (Fri), 2025 13:30-15:35
- Venue: D312, Natural Sci. Bldg. D, Univ. Tsukuba
- Program:
Contact: Asso.Prof. Y. Takeuchi
- 2025/03/08-09 International workshop "The 2nd Workshop Highly Baryonic Matter at RHIC-BES and Future Facilities"
The 2nd Workshop on Highly Baryonic Matter at RHIC-BES and Future Facilities --- beyond the Critical Point towards Neutron Stars --- (WHBM2025) will be held at University of Tsukuba on March 8-9 (Sat-Sun), 2025 in order to discuss about our current understandings and future directions of researches on Quark Gluon Plasma (QGP) and QCD phase diagram, especially related to the first order phase transition and the critical end point, that are expected at high baryon density region in the phase diagram. The main topics to be discussed in the workshop would be on collective flow, vorticity, imaging, correlation, fluctuation and their experimental and theoretical challenges for clarifying the QCD phase structure and the high-density quark-nuclear matter from intermediate- to high-energy heavy-ion collisions in on-going programs at LHC and RHIC beam energy scan as well as future directions at FAIR, LHC/SPS, RHIC/AGS, HIAF and J-PARC etc.
Details of the workshop including the registration form can be found at the website below.
- Date: Mar. 08-09, 2025 (Sat-Sun) 8:30-17:30
- Venue: Advanced Research building-B, Room 0110, Univ. Tsukuba
- URL: https://kds.kek.jp/event/53510/ ( https://kds.kek.jp/e/whbm2025)
- You need to type in the access keyword that you see on the screen, to enter the web site.
Contact: Prof. S. Esumi
- 2025/02/06 The astronomy project at Dome Fuji in Antarctica has finally begun!
The Division of Antarctic Astronomy is planning to install a 30cm submillimeter telescope at Dome Fuji inland of Antarctica to clarify the evolution process of interstellar gas in the Milky Way. This year, two members have joined the dome team and have begun preparations on-site. Next year, we will finally send the telescope to Antarctica.
(photo by S.Honda)Visit NIPR Research Team Blog https://nipr-blog.nipr.ac.jp/jare/20250128post-552.html (in Japanese) for more information.
- 2025/01/07 HoU seminar
- Date： Jan. 07, 2025 (Tue) 16:15-17:15
- Venue: B118, Natural Science Bldg. B, Univ. Tsukuba
- Speaker: Marco Bomben (APC & Université de Paris, Cité)
- Title: "TCAD simulations of silicon sensors for High Energy Physics"
- Technology computer-aided design (TCAD) simulations are a fundamental tool in the micro-electronics industry. TCAD tools allow to simulate both processed and device behaviour. TCAD simulations are crucial for the development of silicon sensors for high energy physics (HEP) too, allowing to reduce the number of submissions by studying in advance the performance of proposed layout and geometries of future detectors. In this talk I will present some highlights of my work on TCAD simulations, with focus on the possibility to have insight into quantities otherwise unaccessible like electric field and carrier concentration and velocity. I will also show how results from TCAD simulations can be used as input for more high-level MonteCarlo simulations.
Contact: Assi.Prof. S. Hirose
- 2024/12/26 S. Hirose received the AAPPS-JPS Award
Assi.Prof. Shigeki Hirose (Div. of Elementary Particles) received The 3rd (2025) AAPPS-JPS Award for his experimental study of the Higgs sector using the tau lepton as a probe.
In order to promote research on Physics in the Asian region, JPS and AAPPS (Association of Asia Pacific Physical Societies) jointly award AAPPS-JPS Award for young JPS members who achieve outstanding research results in this regard.
- 2024/12/16 2nd TCHoU Research Member Meeting / Activity and Achievement Reports for FY2024
We have a research workshop to share achievements, exchanging activities and future projects for all members of TCHoU.
- Date: 16 Dec 2024 (Mo)
- 9:30-10:30 Research Member Meeting, 10:30-16:25 Activity and Achievement Reports
- Venue: CRiES Advanced Accelerator Section, 3F Auditorium
- Program:
- Click on the title for the presentation slide.
- Number of participants: about 20
Contact: Prof. N. Kuno
- 2024/11/3-4 Tsukuba University Campus Festival "Sohosai" Exhibition
TCHoU made an exhibit of the Introduction to Researches at Tsukuba for the Tsukuba University Campus Festival "Sohosai", to introduce our researches toward "Unraveling the History of the Universe".
- Date: 3-4 Nov 2024
- Venue: Room 1B401, Advanced Research building-B, Univ. Tsukuba
- Title: "Unraveling the History of the Universe"
- 2024/10/04 HoU seminar
- Date： Oct. 04, 2024 (Fri) 13:45-15:00
- Venue: B118, Natural Sci. Bldg. B, Univ. Tsukuba
- Speaker: Keita Mizukoshi (JAXA/ISAS)
- Title: "Search for dark matter using a long-duration orbiting balloon in Antarctic'"
- Despite the evidence for dark matter as an unknown particle inferred from astronomical observations, its true nature remains elusive. While direct searches using xenon dual-phase detectors have yielded significant results, they are approaching the detection limit due to neutrino background events. On the other hand, indirect detection experiments are crucial as they can directly test the thermal production model of dark matter, making them complementary to other search methods. Additionally, cosmic antiparticles (such as antiprotons) originating from dark matter are expected to allow background-free searches in the low-energy region, meaning that the detection of even a single antiproton could provide critical information about the nature of dark matter.
The GAPS experiment plans to conduct its search in the upper stratosphere over Antarctica using a helium balloon, in order to avoid the effects of the atmosphere and geomagnetism. A flight lasting about one month, carrying a payload of approximately 2 tons equipped with a silicon detector array and TOF scintillators, is scheduled for this December. In this seminar, we will provide a detailed explanation of the indirect detection of dark matter, the GAPS experiment, and the unique aspects of balloon experiments. - Number of participants: 25
Contact: Assi.Prof. T. Iida
- 2024/09/30 Tsukuba Global Science Week (TGSW) 2024 "Universe Evolution and Matter Origin"
As the Session 4-1 of the Tsukuba Global Science Week, TCHoU is organizing the International Workshop on "Universe Evolution and Matter Origin" as an on-line workshop.
In order to answer various questions in basic natural science especially about the evolution of the universe and the origin of matter, University of Tsukuba has founded the "Tomonaga Center for the History of the Universe" (TCHoU). TCHoU includes the following four divisions; (1)Antarctic Astronomy, (2)Elementary Particles, (3)Quark Nuclear Matters, and (4)Photon and Particle Detectors. These 4 divisions are trying to cooperate together to shed light on the "dark-" matter, energy and galaxies, toward understanding the origin of matter, phase transition and structure formation as well as their fluctuation and evolution in our Universe. This session is to share the understanding of our fields and to discuss about the next step.
- Date: Sept.30, 2024 (Mon) 15:00-21:00
- Venue: Online
- URL: TGSW : Session 4-1 "Universe Evolution and Matter Origin"
- Program:
15:00-15:05 Fumihiko Ukegawa TCHoU, Univ. Tsukuba Opening 15:05-15:50 Lijuan Ruan BNL Recent results from STAR experiment at RHIC-BNL 15:50-16:35 Tetyana Galatyuk TU Darmstadt/GSI Probing cosmic forms of matter in the laboratory 16:35-17:20 Yuhu Zhang IMP Precision mass measurements of short-lived nuclei at heavy ions storage ring in Lanzhou 17:30-18:15 Wen Yin Tokyo Metropolitan Univ. Neutrino, dark matter, and new physics 18:15-19:00 Shigeki Hirose TCHoU, Univ. Tsukuba Unraveling the mysteries of the Universe through Higgs: now and future of the energy frontier 19:10-19:55 Satoki Matsushita Inst. Astronomy and Astrophysics,
Academia SinicaGreenland Telescope (GLT): Imaging the Black Hole Shadow and the Photon Ring 19:55-20:40 His-An Pan Tamkang Univ. Neutrino, dark matter, and new physics 20:40-20:50 Nario Kuno TCHoU, Univ. Tsukuba Closing - Number of participants: about 20
Please click on the title for the presentation slide.
Contact: Prof. Akira Ozawa
- Visit [Archive] for previous news and announcements.
