What's New !! 2002
Dec 1
Great. It's December again. We bought a tree for Christmas that cheers me up and gives me energy to work. I usually like Christmas, and hope this year would be no exception. But I know that the true excitement will come somewhat later than Christmas -- the MAP first results, coming in January.
Oct 3
I visit Department of Physics and Astronomy in Rutgers University to talk about "Angular power spectrum of the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect" at Astro Seminars. Wondering why I am talking about this work so many times? Because this is my favorite work! As far as I know, this is the only work which interprets CBI and BIMA data as SZ seriously, and finds cosmological implications, i.e., a value of sigma_8 with errorbars. See also this work for applications of our model.
Oct 1
2002年天文・天体物理夏の学校で講演した内容の集録をアップロードしました。 興味のある方は、こちらからどうぞ。
July 29-Sep 3
We plan to go back to Japan. A tentative schedule is
7/29(Mon): leave for Japan [Newark->Tokyo/Narita->Osaka/Itami]
7/30-8/13: Takarazuka, Hyogo
7/31(Thu)-8/1(Fri): attend "Summer school on astronomy and astrophysics" in Kyoto, giving a talk on CMB at the Relativity and Cosmology session.
8/3(Sat): cerebrate my father's 60th birthday, and fireworks!!
8/4(Sun): meet friends -- go to "Takarazuka Family Land", one of the landmarks of our home town, before it closes... It's a pity that it has to close.
8/9(Fri): Reunion!!
8/14(Wed): visit friends in Tokyo
8/15(Thu): visit my sister-in-law's family
8/16-17: visit NAOJ
8/16(Fri): SZ data-analysis meeting
8/17(Sat): meet Inoue-san
8/18-20: visit Tokyo University
8/19(Mon): talk at Tokyo University entitled "Angular power spectrum of the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect".
8/21-8/30: Kohri, Date, Fukushima (visit Tohoku University)
8/23(Fri)-25(Sun): go to Onsen with my family-in-law
8/26(Mon): talk at Tohoku University entitled "What to learn from CMB fluctuations at 1-arcminute scales". stay at Gonryou-kaikan.
8/31-9/2: Takarazuka, Hyogo
9/3(Mon): leave for Princeton [Osaka/Itami->Tokyo/Narita->Newark]
July 22
Our paper, "The Sunyaev-Zel'dovich angular power spectrum as a probe of cosmological parameters", has been accepted for publication in the Monthly Notices of Royal Astronomical Society!!
July 5
名球会のページを見つけました。 その中の 稲尾さん の話に、自分も常に頭に置いておきたい文章があったので、 忘れないようにここに書いておこうと思います。

"高校時代はノーコンピッチャー。それが１年目に２１勝して高名な野球評論家から「針の穴を通すコントロール」なんて褒められたわけです。なぜそうなったかといえば、それは同期に最高のライバルがいたことと、彼を乗り越えるために、与えられた環境のなかで最大限の努力をした結果だと思うんですよ。だから、僕が入団１年目のキャンプで得た教訓というのは、結果は環境から生まれるんじゃなくて、工夫や努力から生まれるということ。最良の結果を出すのは、与えられた環境ではなくて、その環境のなかで行う工夫や努力なんだということですね。だいたい、こういう環境でなきゃ練習しないという人は、どんな立派な環境を与えてやっても練習しないし、また選手として大成できた人はほとんどいないですね。"

全くその通りだと思います。この言葉を忘れずにがんばろう。 山田さん の話も聞きたいなあ。でも、今は監督だからヒマないか。 今は５位だけど、応援してまっせ！！がんばってや！！

Jun 4
I have posted my Ph.D. thesis, "The Pursuit of Non-Gaussian Fluctuations in the Cosmic Microwave Background", on astro-ph/0206039. I would like to thank Prof. Wayne Hu for encouraging me to do so.
Jun 3
BIMA saw excess CMB power on even smaller angular scales!! Check up astro-ph/0206012, and also you will find here what the power spectrum looks like and how the data compare with the SZ effect. We may be seeing the turnover of the SZ power spectrum, and sigma8 is still very close to 1.0. Intriguing, isn't it?!
May 27
Our brand-new paper, "The Sunyaev-Zel'dovich angular power spectrum as a probe of cosmological parameters", shows up on astro-ph/0205468! Yes, if the detection of the small-scale CMB fluctuations by the CBI deep-field is due to the SZ effect, then sigma8 is 1.05 +- 0.15 at the 95% C.L.!! Suspect? Not convinced? Please see this.
Explanation: thin solid lines are the predicted SZ angular power spectra for three different sigma8's. These lines are to be compared with the gray-hatched regions, the CBI data (Mason et al. 2002). Contour plots for the parameter estimation are available in our paper.
May 23
CBI's second results came out! Mosaic-field data show a clear drop in the power spectrum between l=800 and 1000, which is indicative of the Silk damping, and the baryon content of the universe being cosistent with BBN measurement. Deep-field data suggest the detection of the small-scale fluctuations beyond l=2000, where the primary CMB is not important; thus, this may be providing the first detection of secondary anisotropy!! One of the interpretations of this signal is the SZ effect, in which case sigma8 has to be greater than 1. Yes, it's true! Our new SZ power spectrum paper coming out very soon will show that the SZ power spectrum is a really good measure of sigma8, and it is almost independent of any other parameters. We have carefully examined our theoretical predictions, and hope that the predictions give us the rigorous analytic prediction for the SZ power spectrum, which is accurate enough to fit the data. There are two other papers about power-spectrum estimation, and cosmological parameters.
May 22
VSA's first results came out! The power spectrum is beautifully consistent with the previous data. Papers are here: [observation I] [observation II] [power spectrum] [cosmological parameters]
May 15
I'm feeling that some particles I am allergic to are floating around here in Princeton... A good news: a new Japanese postdoc, Takahiro Sumi, has joined our department recently! (He is from Nagoya University, working on a microlensing search project called MOA.) The number of Japanese postdocs are three in total, Japanese being the largest population among postdocs in Peyton Hall! (ps. He can drink.)
Apr 22-May 3
I visit University of Chicago, and talk about our recent theoretical progress on predicting the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich angular power spectrum on April 26. The talk title is "Angular power spectrum of the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect" (abstract). I also visit UIUC (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), and talk about our non-Gaussianity work on April 24. The title is "Searching for primordial non-Gaussianity in CMB". A tentative travel plan is the following:
4/22: leave Princeton for Chicago
4/22-4/25: visit UIUC (talk on 4/24)
4/26-5/2: visit University of Chicago (talk on 4/26)
5/3: leave Chicago for Princeton
Mar 30
念願の、吉野家 in NYに行ってきました！ 詳細レポはコチラからどうぞー。
Mar 23
My boss, Prof. David N. Spergel's surprise birthday party. It is always fun to see how much one's boss is surprised, isn't it? Happy birthday, David!
Mar 22
Oh, thank God. I finally got an office with window, after two years and half being in Peyton Hall basement!! I believe that efficiency of one's working is highly degraded when one is working in the office downstairs without window. I cannot in fact think of any worse thing to do than being in those circumstances. This is one of the major progresses that I ever made in Peyton Hall since I came here. Under the sunshine! What pleasure!
Mar 7
The color of the Universe has been corrected; they have found an error in the code. So, the color of the Universe is not turquoise any more, but this. Oops, it seems my HP's color happens to be pretty close to the color of the Universe!
Feb 25-Mar 2
I visit CITA (Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics, Toronto, Ontario, Canada) and talk about our non-Gaussianity work on February 25. The talk title is "Searching for primordial non-Gaussianity in CMB".
Feb 21-24
We plan to drive from Goddard up to Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and hopefully visit Niagara Falls by Lake Ontario. What do the falls look like in winter?
Feb 20
I visit Dr. Al Kogut at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Maryland. We plan to drive from Princeton to Goddard.
Jan 23-27
We go skiing at Stratton ski area, Vermont.
Jan 12
We went to Yoshinoya in NY, which was supposed to have been open since December 18; however, it was still under construction... shit...
Jan 1
A happy new year from Princeton!! We had no chance to do the shrine lot this year as being in the US, so don't know what is going to happen this year. Since I had drunk too much in the new-year's eve, my wife does not allow me to drink for at least one month. So, it seems my new year has begun with a bad luck, had my last year too. Our new-year's eve party, however, was very much fun! Thanks everyone. And... we thank Sato-san, Suto-san, and Kitayama-san for their patience... We just wanted to express our sincere new year's greetings to you all, although it might have seemed too much stronger than we intended to... Anyway, a happy new year to everyone!!
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