Masahiro Takada receives Hayashi Chushiro Prize

March 6, 2024
Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU, WPI)

Kavli IPMU Professor Masahiro Takada (Credit: Kavli IPMU)

Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU, WPI) Professor Masahiro Takada has been awarded this year’s Hayashi Chushiro Prize, it was announced by the Astronomical Society of Japan.

The prize is named in honor of Japanese theoretical astrophysicist Chushiro Hayashi, who made significant contributions to a wide range of areas including the understanding of nucleosynthesis, stellar evolution, and the origin of the solar system. The prize was established in 1996 when Hayashi received the Kyoto Prize that year, and is awarded every year to a researcher who the society believes has made great achievements in planetary science, astronomy, astrophysics or any other related fields.

Takada is being commended for his, “Pursuit of precision cosmology using data from the Subaru Telescope”.

“I’m honored to have received the Hayashi Chushiro Prize and that my work using the Subaru Telescope’s data has been recognized by the Astronomical Society of Japan. I want to say thank you to all of my mentors, the researchers who recommended me for this prize, and all of my collaborators over the years. I hope to use this award as motivation to do even more work in cosmology. I’m looking forward to starting observations with the Prime Focus Spectrograph soon, so please expect more results from us in the near future,” said Takada.

For the past few years, Takada and his collaborators have been studying primordial black holes using the Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) camera mounted on the Subaru Telescope at the peak of Maunakea in Hawaii. To date he has contributed to breakthroughs including finding that dark matter is not made up of tiny primordial black holes.

Takada has also served as science working group leader of the Hyper Suprime-Cam Subaru Strategic Program (HSC-SSP), leading the group analyzing HSC data. Last year, the HSC-SSP measured a value for the “clumpiness” of the universe’s dark matter, known to cosmologists as S8, and found their results aligned with values that other weak gravitational lensing surveys had found in looking at the relatively recent universe, but it did not align with the value derived from the Cosmic Microwave Background, leading to further investigations into this curious case.

This year’s Hayashi Chushiro Prize also recognizes Takada’s efforts in theoretical research, and his work to connect the theory to weak gravitational lensing observations.

This year, researchers are closing in to complete the Prime Focus Spectrograph (PFS), a next-generation instrument to study the universe, which will be mounted onto the Subaru Telescope. Takada serves as leader of the science working group of the PFS, raising expectations he still has much more to contribute to research in the future.

A prizegiving ceremony and commemorative lecture will be held in March during the Astronomical Society of Japan’s spring meeting, scheduled in March 11 to 15 at The University of Tokyo.

Masahiro Takada Education and Experience
2001 Doctor of Science, Tohoku University
2001 – 2002 JSPS Fellow, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan
2002 – 2004 Postdoctoral Researcher, Pennsylvania University
2004 – 2008 Assistant Professor, Tohoku University
2008 Associate Professor, Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU, WPI), The University of Tokyo
2012 Project Professor, Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU, WPI), The University of Tokyo
2013 Professor, Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU, WPI), The University of Tokyo