I am the only human being among the 8 billion people in the world who knows this fact of nature now.

People

Hirokazu TAMURA

1.What kind of the research are you doing?

I am creating and investigating a new type of atomic nucleus called "hypernucleus," in which the third type of particle, the “hyperon”, is added to nuclei made up of protons and neutrons. Why do nuclei exist in nature? We have not yet answered this very basic question well. Why does nature go through the tedious process of gathering three elementary particles (quarks) to form a proton and neutron, and then loosely gluing protons and neutrons to form an atomic nucleus? By studying what happens when particles other than protons and neutrons are added to a nucleus, I want to find out the fundamental reason for the existence of nuclei.

2.What is the reason for starting your study?

I remember I was surprised and deeply impressed that the nature was based on such a simple principle when I learned parabolic motion in high school physics. That is how I entered the physics department. I was interested in elementary particles, and I was attracted to a professor who happily talked about experiments in an undergraduate class, so I joined his lab in the graduate school and joined an accelerator experiment to search for heavy neutrinos. At the end of the beamtime, on a whim (or actually, from his deep consideration), the professor changed the beam particles slightly and took some data, and to my surprise, production of hypernuclei (completely unrelated to neutrinos) was recorded there. It was the first creation of hypernuclei in Japan. At that time, any experiments on neutrinos were not yielding positive results (it was just before Prof. Koshiba started the Kamiokande experiment). I found it more fun to create new types of nuclei one after another than to search for something that might not exist. So, I started research on hypernuclei. At first, I did not understand the value of this research, but as I worked on it, I became convinced that the hypernucleus is an important topic with the potential to reform nuclear physics, and I got absorbed in it.

3.Message for prospective students

When doing research, very occasionally, I discover something new that no one else in the world knows. Even if it is a small discovery, I get thrilled when I realize that I am the only human being among the 8 billion people in the world who knows this fact of nature now. It makes me very happy to think that this discovery has expanded the knowledge of mankind a little bit. There are many hard days, but this is why I can't stop doing research. It’s great fun!

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