The Japanese space gravitational wave antenna; DECIGO

DECi-hertz Interferometer Gravitational wave Observatory (DECIGO) is the future Japanese space gravitational wave antenna. DECIGO is expected to open a new window of observation for gravitational wave astronomy especially between 0.1 Hz and 10 Hz, revealing various mysteries of the universe such as dark energy, formation mechanism of supermassive black holes, and inflation of the universe. The pre-conceptual design of DECIGO consists of three drag-free spacecraft, whose relative displacements are measured by a differential Fabry– Perot Michelson interferometer. We plan to launch two missions, DECIGO pathfinder and pre- DECIGO first and finally DECIGO in 2024

DECIGO pathfinder

DECIGO pathfinder (DPF) is a milestone satellite mission for DECIGO (DECi-hertz Interferometer Gravitational wave Observatory) which is a future space gravitational wave antenna. DECIGO is expected to provide us fruitful insights into the universe, in particular about dark energy, a formation mechanism of supermassive black holes, and the inflation of the universe. Since DECIGO will be an extremely large mission which will formed by three drag-free spacecraft with 1000m separation, it is significant to gain the technical feasibility of DECIGO before its planned launch in 2024. Thus, we are planning to launch two milestone missions: DPF and pre-DECIGO. The conceptual design and current status of the first milestone mission, DPF, are reviewed in this article

ナンタイヨウ オーストラリア ク ニ オケル ヒョウソウ カイヨウ チュウ ノ ニサンカタンソ ブンアツ ノ ケイネン ヘンカ ト キセツ ヘンカ

全球の炭素循環を解明する上で,大気-海洋間の二酸化炭素(CO_2)交換を定量化することは最重要課題のひとつである.高緯度海域は風が強く,表層海洋中のCO_2 分圧(以下,pCO_2)が大気よりも低いために,CO_2 の吸収域として重要な海域である.特に,全海洋面積のおよそ20% を占める南大洋は,巨大なCO_2 の吸収源と考えられている.しかし,他海域に比べて観測機会が限られており,CO_2 吸収量の正確な評価に結びつくpCO_2 のデータの蓄積は十分ではない. 本報告では,「しらせ」の東経110度における長期pCO_2 観測から,pCO_2 が大気中のCO_2 濃度よりも若干低い増加率で経年変化していること,また,2001年12月～ 2002年3月に実施された東経140度における複数船時系列観測から,pCO_2 の夏季の詳細な時間変化とその要因を明らかにした.In order to elucidate the secular trends of oceanic CO_2 uptake in the Indian sector of the Southern Ocean, pCO_2, the partial pressure of CO_2 in the ocean surface layer, has been measured since 1987 on board the icebreaker Shirase. Meridional distributions of pCO_2 along 110゜E in early December clearly show steep changes at such fronts as the subtropical front, subantarctic front, and polar front. Although pCO_2 of each zone shows interannual variation, secular trend is detectable. For example, the estimated rate of increase of pCO_2 in the permanent open ocean zone between the polar front (around 53゜S) and the northern edge of winter ice cover (63゜S) is about 1.3 μatm y, which is slightly lower than the rate of increase of the atmospheric CO_2 concentration. From the results obtained by multi-ship observations with 4 research vessels in the Southern Ocean in summer, we found that the values of pCO_2 off the coast of the Antarctic Continent (66゜S) varied temporally by 100 μatm for 5 months. We also found that nDIC decreased with time from December 2001 to March 2002 in the upper layer from 100 to 200 m due to biological activity during summer

Current status of space gravitational wave antenna DECIGO and B-DECIGO

Deci-hertz Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (DECIGO) is the future Japanese space mission with a frequency band of 0.1 Hz to 10 Hz. DECIGO aims at the detection of primordial gravitational waves, which could be produced during the inflationary period right after the birth of the universe. There are many other scientific objectives of DECIGO, including the direct measurement of the acceleration of the expansion of the universe, and reliable and accurate predictions of the timing and locations of neutron star/black hole binary coalescences. DECIGO consists of four clusters of observatories placed in the heliocentric orbit. Each cluster consists of three spacecraft, which form three Fabry-Perot Michelson interferometers with an arm length of 1,000 km. Three clusters of DECIGO will be placed far from each other, and the fourth cluster will be placed in the same position as one of the three clusters to obtain the correlation signals for the detection of the primordial gravitational waves. We plan to launch B-DECIGO, which is a scientific pathfinder of DECIGO, before DECIGO in the 2030s to demonstrate the technologies required for DECIGO, as well as to obtain fruitful scientific results to further expand the multi-messenger astronomy.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figure

The status of DECIGO

DECIGO (DECi-hertz Interferometer Gravitational wave Observatory) is the planned Japanese space gravitational wave antenna, aiming to detect gravitational waves from astrophysically and cosmologically significant sources mainly between 0.1 Hz and 10 Hz and thus to open a new window for gravitational wave astronomy and for the universe. DECIGO will consists of three drag-free spacecraft arranged in an equilateral triangle with 1000 km arm lengths whose relative displacements are measured by a differential Fabry-Perot interferometer, and four units of triangular Fabry-Perot interferometers are arranged on heliocentric orbit around the sun. DECIGO is vary ambitious mission, we plan to launch DECIGO in era of 2030s after precursor satellite mission, B-DECIGO. B-DECIGO is essentially smaller version of DECIGO: B-DECIGO consists of three spacecraft arranged in an triangle with 100 km arm lengths orbiting 2000 km above the surface of the earth. It is hoped that the launch date will be late 2020s for the present

Current status of space gravitational wave antenna DECIGO and B-DECIGO

The Deci-hertz Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (DECIGO) is a future Japanese space mission with a frequency band of 0.1 Hz to 10 Hz. DECIGO aims at the detection of primordial gravitational waves, which could have been produced during the inflationary period right after the birth of the Universe. There are many other scientific objectives of DECIGO, including the direct measurement of the acceleration of the expansion of the Universe, and reliable and accurate predictions of the timing and locations of neutron star/black hole binary coalescences. DECIGO consists of four clusters of observatories placed in heliocentric orbit. Each cluster consists of three spacecraft, which form three Fabry–Pérot Michelson interferometers with an arm length of 1000 km. Three DECIGO clusters will be placed far from each other, and the fourth will be placed in the same position as one of the other three to obtain correlation signals for the detection of primordial gravitational waves. We plan to launch B-DECIGO, which is a scientific pathfinder for DECIGO, before DECIGO in the 2030s to demonstrate the technologies required for DECIGO, as well as to obtain fruitful scientific results to further expand multi-messenger astronomy