News

In September 2022, Assistant Professor Ryosuke Akutsu joined the Neutrino Group, and in October, Postdoctoral Fellow Cyrille Praz joined the Belle Group, Postdoctoral Researcher Hikaru Sugawa joined the Neutrino Group, Assistant Professor Shusei Kamioka joined the Muon Neutron Group, and Assistant Professor Lai, Yun Tsun joined the Electronics System Group.

We would like to introduce their arrival greetings

We look forward to their future activities at the IPNS.

• Neutrino Group, Assistant Professor, Dr. Ryosuke Akutsu

I am Ryosuke Akutsu, and I started an assistant professor position in the neutrino group at IPNS in September 2022. As a master’s student, I measured the light-scattering cross-section of gadolinium sulfate-doped water for the SK-Gd project. I joined the T2K experiment as a Ph.D. student. I was an expert on data reduction and simulation at the Super-Kamiokande far detector, and measured neutrons associated with neutrino interactions in water as my Ph.D. thesis topic. After getting my Ph.D., I have been working on an intermediate water Cherenkov detector (IWCD) for the Hyper-Kamiokande project that will use a neutrino beam produced at J-PARC to study the leptonic CP violation. The IWCD detector will play a crucial role to discover the CP violation and subsequent precise measurement. As a postdoctoral researcher, I performed various simulation studies and developed a new photosensor module for the IWCD. At IPNS, I will contribute to both designing and constructing the IWCD detector and related experimental the facility, to realize the start of operation in 2027.

• Belle Group, Postdoctoral Fellow, Dr. Cyrille Praz

After obtaining a master’s degree in physics at EPFL (Switzerland) in 2018, I joined the Bell e II collaboration at DESY (Germany) to work on a Ph.D. project focusing on the search for the decay of a B meson into a kaon and a pair of neutrinos. I am now joining KEK as a postdoctoral fellow to apply machine learning methods to search for rare B-meson decays and to work on software development for the Belle II drift chamber. I am truly grateful for the opportunity to join this international effort devoted to improving our understanding of flavor physics.

Cyrille Praz

• Neutrino Group, Postdoctoral Fellow, Dr. Hikaru Tanigawa

I am Hikaru Tanigawa from Kyushu, Japan. I joined the neutrino group as a postdoc in October.

During the master’s course, I worked on the Belle II experiment, which was in its commissioning phase. I developed a trigger-veto firmware and studied the beam background. These studies were essential for the Belle II detector to operate under high luminosity.

In the doctoral course, I measured the time-dependent CP asymmetry in the B⁰→K_S⁰K_S⁰K_S⁰ decays collected at Belle II and received my degree this September.

In the neutrino group, I will lead the assembly of the new near detector of the T2K experiment, SuperFGD, to achieve next year’s beam data acquisition. I will also work on developing analysis methods to maximize the performance of SuperFGD.

Hikaru Tanigawa

• Muon and Neutron Group, Assistant Professor, Dr. Shusei Kamioka

I am Shusei Kamioka. I arrived at KEK IPNS this October.

During my master’s and Ph.D. course, I worked on the search for vacuum magnetic birefringence using high-finesse Fabry-Perot cavity and pulsed magnets, and I received my Ph. D. degree from the University of Tokyo in 2020.

Since last year, I have been participating in the muon g-2/EDM experiment as a JSPS research fellowship to develop ultra-slow muon sources and their ionization lasers.

In addition to these developments, I would like to play a role in leading the entire experiment toward the start of data measurement in 2027.
Nice to meet you.

Shusei Kamioka

• Electronics System Group, Assistant Professor, Dr. Lai, Yun Tsung
  I am very happy to join the KEK Electronics System group as the next step in my academic career. I got my Ph.D. at National Taiwan University (NTU) and worked for NTU, KEK, and Kavli IPMU as a postdoc. I have been working on B/D decays search at Belle, and software and FPGA firmware development in Belle II L1 Trigger, Aerogel-RICH, and DAQ systems. My plan will be to R&D of the trigger/DAQ system as a member of the collider electronics forum and try to find a possibility of integrating new technology. I am looking forward to working with experts from different groups.
  Please give my best regards,
  Lai