Prof. Ueda Wins the JSPS Prize
- T. Otsuka (Professor, Department of Physics)
Prof. Masahito Ueda
Masahito Ueda, Professor in the Department of Physics, has won the JSPS Prize.
Prof. Ueda in the Department of Physics has received the 5th JSPS (Japan Society for the Promotion of Science) Prize. We are very much pleased with this wonderful news.
Prof. Ueda was granted the prize for his research on “Theory of Ultracold Atomic Gases”. Let me try to describe it briefly: Bose systems at low temperature cause a singular phenomenon called “Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC)”, which was theoretically predicted by Einstein in 1924. In recent years, the BEC can be created when a group of atoms composed of such Bose particles (Bose atomic gases) are formed by the use of magnetic trap or laser cooling and further by the use of evaporation cooling at ultralow temperatures. Cold atomic gases have attracted much attention as new quantum condensed species rated on par with superfluid helium and superconducting electron system.
Prof. Ueda has been working in this field over decades from early on. He has theoretically proved that Bose condensates with strong attractive interaction cause a singular shatter-decay phenomenon called Bose Nova, and he has also clarified its metastability and collapse mechanism, which became a key achievement for winning the Prize.
In addition, Prof. Ueda has developed a variety of original researches on quantum many-body phenomena such as superfluidity phenomenon. We expect he will lead both theories and experiments on technological application of microscopic quantum phenomenon, quantum computation using cold atomic gases, etc.