July 12, 2019
Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU)
On June 27, the Kavli IPMU had two special visitors, House of Representatives member Hajime Funada, and his wife and former House of Councillors member Kei Hata. Funada played a role in the development of the Subaru Telescope on top of Mauna Kea in Hawaii, and is currently head of the Liberal Democratic Party Science and Technology Innovation Strategy Investigation’s foundation issue foundation committee. Hata, who had obtained her doctorate in science and technology policy, had joined the visit as part of her commitment to the foundation issue committee planning and operations.
Funada and Hata listened to Principal Investigator Masahiro Takada talk about the current projects being carried out using the Subaru Telescope and the Hyper Suprime-Cam, including the currently-under-development Prime Focus Spectrograph. Project Associate Professor Tomotake Matsumura then introduced the LiteBIRD satellite project. LiteBIRD is a space satellite project that will try to detect primordial gravitational waves that were created by the CMB (Cosmic Microwave Background).
After speaking with researchers, Funada and Hata took part in tea time together with Kavli IPMU Director Hirosi Ooguri. Afterwards the group went to the LiteBIRD laboratory on the ground floor, and lastly engaged in discussion with Ooguri.
