Motohide TAMURA Home Page
Under
construction (forever?)
Japanese version is
here.
Major Fields:
Infrared Astronomy (Observations and Instrumentations)
Star and Planet Formation
Extrasolar Planet Detection
- NEW!! Speicall feature in PASJ is to be published on Wide-field IR polarimetry.
- CIAO has detected a young brown dwarf around DH Tau. This is a step toward
the direct detectin of extrasolar planets and one of the results of the
Subaru Disk and Planets Searches Porject (SDPS). Press release page is
here.
- Extrasolar Planet Detection Project Officeis launched in NAOJ (2005.4)
1. Extrasolar planet seaches with the Subaru telescope,
2. Instrumentation and science with the Nnext generation space IR telescope
(SPICA)
3. Extrasolar terrestrial planet finding mission (JTPF)
are the three main themes of this project office
To students: our project office invites graduate student. Please contact
me.
- SIRIUS special issue is published in Astronomical Herald. (2005.3 and 4)
- SIRIUS discoverd a new young stellar cluster in Vela (Baba et al.)
- Subaru COMICS discovered disks around free-floating planets in Ophiuchus.
(with US team)
- SIRIUSfound "dark cloud" is in fact shing at near-infrared wavelengths. Press Release page.
-
- Organizing extrasolar terrestiral planet detection loadmap in Japan.
- Monthly seminar on extrasolar planets.
Projects and Research Interests:
- CIAO
(Coronagraphic Imager with Adaptive Optics)
(CIAO on the Subaru 8.2m telescope)
* This is a high-spatial resolution and high sensitivity infrared
camera for the Subaru 8.2-m telescope, which is optimized for use with
adaptive optics and "stellar coronagraph".
* CIAO's aim is to detect faint
objects in the vicinity of bright objects.
* Observation Targets:
companion brown dwrafs and extrasolar planets, protoplanetary disks, jets,
qusar host galaxies, gravitational lenses
* CIAO
obtained its First Light on the Subaru 8.2m telescope on February 9, 2000.
* Some introduction of the First Light is described here
* Relevant articles: Yomiuri Shinbun - May 20 issue, Kagaku Shinbun -
March 26 issue, Asahi Shinbun - January 6 issue
* Coupling with Adaptive Optics was succesfully finished on
January 14, 2001, which enables 10 times sharper images than
before.
* Technical (SPIE) paper is here.
* !!NEW!!
Latest report presented at the 198th AAS meeting is here.
- Very low-mass stars / brown dwarfs / extra-solar planets
* Detection
of young brown dwarfs and young extrasolar planets in nearby star forming
regions were reported in the Japanese Astronomical Meeting in 1998 March and
in Science (1998 Nov 6 issue) !
* Both companion type and free-floating
type young brown dwarfs` candidates were discovered.
* !!NEW!! Discovery of hundreds of young brown dwarfs and
giant-planet-mass objects (aka free-floating planets, according to some
people) in S106 region. Press release on February 14, 2001.
(JHK'
composite image of S106)
- Infrared Survey of Star Forming Regions - Toward the understanding of IMF
(Initial Mass Function) -
* Development of the SIRIUS camera
(Simultaneous-color InfraRed Imeger for Unbiased Surveys) under the
collaboration with the Nagoya University IR group.
* SIRIUS is equipped
with three science-grade 1024x1024 HgCdTe arrays (HAWAII array, manufactured
by Hughes, former Rockwell).
* This is a large-area infrared (JHK) survey
project with higher-sensitivity and higher-resolution than those of current
all sky surveys (2MASS and DENIS).
* SIRIUS homepage is here.
Including nice gallery of cosmic objects such as below.
* SIRIUS is now
workinhg at the newly developed 1.4m telescope of Nagoya University in South
Africa.
(SIRIUS on UH2.2m telescope)
(Star forming region Cep A obtained with SIRIUS and UH2.2m
telescope)
* Presentation in English here
* Much
deeper surveys with the Subaru telescope is also in progress (such as S106
survey above)
- Infrared/Submillimeter/Millimeter Polarimetry and Magnetic Field Structure
in Star Forming Regions
(IR and Optical polarization map of the Taurus dark cloud)
(Polarimeter for JCMT/SCUBA)
* JCMT/SCUBA Submillimeter Imaging
Polarimeter project based on UK-Japan collaboration.
* Detection of
submillimeter polarization in T Tauri stars.
- Grain Growth in Dark Clouds
Ice-band "map" of the Taurus dark cloud has
been made for the first time (Murakawa et al. 2000).
- The Galactic Center
Variability of the Galactic Center IR sources.
- High resoltion IR imaging of M31
Discovery of a dozen of very red IR
sources in M31: Massive protostar clusters or superwind-phase AGBs?
Let's join the CIAO and HiCIAO project
Students and Project Collaborators
- Koji MURAKAWA (GUAS, now at ASTRON)
- Yoichi ITOH (Tokyo, now at Kobe)
- Yumiko OASA (Tokyo, now at Kobe)
- Misato FUKAGAWA (Tokyo, now at Nagoya)
- Noboru EBITSUKA
- Takahiro NAOI (Tokyo, now at NAOJ)
- Hideki TAKAMI
- Hiroshi SUTO in Hawaii
- Norio KAIFU (NAOJ Director)
- Saeko HAYASHI in Hawaii
Personal Information
Recent Publications
! 
! Sorry. It's always under construction.
