Researcher
Naoya Kitajima
Assistant ProfessorAdvanced Basic Science
- Mentor Information
- Professor
- Fuminobu Takahashi (Graduate School of Science)
Research Fields | Physics of the early universe, Particle physics beyond the standard model |
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Research Subjects |
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Academic Society Membership | The Physical Society of Japan |
Research Outline | |
In the current situation, 95% of the Universe is still unknown, explained by hypothetical ingredients called dark matter and dark energy. On the other hand, the rest 5% of the Universe can be explained by well-established Standard Model of particle physics, which contains 17 elementary particles. However, the Standard Model itself has some theoretical problems, implying that we need to extend the Standard Model to the Theory of Everything. The dark matter in our Universe may be explained by some new particles in a theory beyond the Standard Model. Among them, axion is one of promising candidates. Fortunately or unfortunately, the axion has not been observed so far since it is in general coupled to the visible sector only through extremely weak interactions. Thus, the axion hunting is still an active research frontier in fundamental physics. My research focuses on (1) simulating the axion dynamics in the early Universe and (2) table-top experiment for axion detection. In particular, I have been studying cosmological imprints of the axion evolution, such as gravitational waves, which can be detected by future observations. Moreover, I am also studying (a theoretical aspect of) axion search experiment, especially focusing on superconducting devices. |