Application for Academy Center Certification
World Premier International Research Center Initiative (WPI)
Host Institution

The University of Tokyo

Research Center

Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe

Host Institution Head
Center Director
Administrative Director

Makoto Gonokami

Hirosi Ooguri
Tomiyoshi Haruyama

Please prepare this application based on the content of your center’s progress report and the progress plan you submitted for the center’s
final evaluation. Summarize the center’s future plans with regard to the following 6 items within three A-4 pages. (Also fill out the
appendices at the end of this form.)

1. Overall Image of Your Center* Describe the Center’s overall image including its current identity.

The Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU) was proposed to
study five interrelated, basic, yet ambitious questions about the Universe:• How did the Universe start?
• What is the Universe made of?
• What is the fate of the Universe?
• What are its fundamental laws?
• Why do we exist?
The Kavli IPMU was founded from scratch with the WPI funding on October 1, 2007, as a uniqueinterdisciplinary institute in the world that combines mathematics, theoretical and experimental physics,
and astronomy. Since then, it has grown to an international research center of about 150 members. It has
produced high impact signature papers with a clear “made in the Kavli IPMU” brand, with citation counts
and the number of highly cited papers comparable to or better than world-leading institutes. We receive
800 visitors on average every year, half of them from abroad; about 700 job applications every year withmore than 90% from overseas; and more than half of about 90 Ph.D. scientists on site are international.
More than 40% of the postdocs who have left the institute found faculty positions. We created anenvironment for strong mutual inspiration between mathematics and physics, and unexpected synergies
between astronomy and mathematics as well as connections with condensed matter physics have emerged.
We proposed to carry out experimental and observational programs from accelerators, undergroundlaboratories, and telescopes, and have launched major experimental initiatives such as HSC, XMASS, andKamLAND-Zen successfully. The interdisciplinary environment allowed us to spawn new initiatives such as
SuMIRe and LiteBIRD, garnering strong international attention. Our outreach program has been highly
successful and mobilized more than 33,000 people, with strong media attention providing close to athousand instances of international coverage. We spearheaded many unprecedented achievements insystem reform at the University of Tokyo, such as split appointments, merit-based salary scales, andendowment donation from a foreign foundation.
What we should thrive for during the five-year extension period is to ensure that the Kavli IPMU will
make a successful transition to a permanent research institute during the five-year extension period of the
WPI funding. We should also make sure that our current research projects will be executed to produce
world-leading discoveries, continue to open new areas of research, create new synergies among different
fields, and plan for new projects to build on our successes. We should do so while maintaining andstrengthening our high standard of research, attracting top-level scientists from all over the world, andfulfilling our mission to propagate system reforms to improve research and education in Japanese
universities and to make them competitive internationally.

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2. Research Activities* Describe how the center will challenge new research fields and adopt new strategies.

We propose 9 challenges in the five-year extension period in research and organization management.
For research activities, addressing new objectives to(1) create new areas and tools of statistics, integrating mathematics with observation and experiments
In fact, we already developed a new image analysis tool that allowed us to identify 65,000 variables
and 1,000 supernovae from the first 55TB of HSC data, which is a record-breaking detection rate. Our new
statistical method allows extremely fast reconstruction of dark matter mass map from gravitational lensing.
There may also be opportunities to apply modern statistical methods to other areas of science such as inhigh energy physics experiments and in theoretical physics, and we plan to explore them in coming years.
(2) create new synergies among the fields not imagined at the launch
Recently, Ooguri and collaborators at Harvard pointed out that there is a global bound on gradients ofeffective potentials in all the known top-down constructions from string theory and that it puts theoreticalconstraints on the w-parameter in the equations of state of dark energy. They can be compared withexperimental constraints on dark energy provided by SuMIRe’s large statistics on stars and galaxies. There
are similar constraints on the inflation potential for the early universe cosmology, which can give useful
input into the LiteBIRD project.
Astronomy and Medicine: We set up a new joint research group with JAXA to apply expertise in X- andγ-ray instrumentation used in satellites to diagnosis and therapy of cancer.
(3) discover new major framework for geometric thinking in mathematics and physics with the derived andnon-commutative geometry, e.g., to unify various types of dualities
We will achieve these goals building on the initial success. One major improvement is the appointmentsof Hiraku Nakajima, Yukari Ito, and Tom Melia who work at the interface between mathematics and physics.
For instance, Nakajima works on precise mathematical formulation of geometry of Coulomb branch insupersymmetric gauge theories, while Melia employs Stiefel manifolds to parameterize relativistic phasespace in collider experiments. At the interface of physics and mathematics, it has become increasingly clearthat quantum information theory provides powerful mathematical language to study quantum field theory,
quantum gravity, and string theory. Recently, Ooguri used it to derive new theorems on symmetry ofquantum gravity, for example. Conversely, these areas of theoretical physics may pose problems and inspire
progress in quantum information. For example, traversable wormholes in quantum gravity may provide a
new efficient protocol for quantum teleportation. Some of PI’s and faculty members at the Kavli IPMU are
already familiar with ideas and techniques of quantum information theory and have started to use them inpowerful ways. Activities in this direction can be strengthened by strategic hiring of postdoctoral fellows
and by uses of focus weeks and conferences.
(4) executing projects successfully to produce world-competitive results on dark energy, dark matter, andinflation
XMASS is concluding its mission with final scientific results, and the group is moving to more ambitious
XENON-nT project. Gd-loading of SK will discover the diffuse supernova neutrinos, and the refurbishmentof the water tank and the deployment of the new purification system will finish in 2018. The initial scientificresults from the HSC survey were published in February 2018, and the first component of the PFS
instrument was delivered to the Subaru telescope in April 2018. Rigorous tests of detector components andhalf-wave plates are underway in the Kavli IPMU building, and the design is being finalized. Now both NASAand ESA are planning to participate in LiteBIRD once chosen by JAXA later in 2018. In addition, we will
start exploring new opportunities beyond the five-year extension period. Possible examples include studyof innovative methods to detect gravitational waves to understand how the universe began, and precision
quantum technologies for dark matter detection and search for subtle deviations from the Standard Model
predictions. In this area, there are opportunities to collaborate with researchers in material science, nanotechnology, and quantum optics.
(5) attracting and retaining the best and broadly minded scientists from around the world
We believe we have attained the world premier status in the initial 10 years, and our ambition is veryclear. We would like to regularly create new theories and new data based on the interdisciplinary mutual
stimulation of mathematics, theoretical physics, experimental physics, and astronomy. We will produce
world-competitive results on dark energy properties, dark matter distributions, dark matter cross sections,and the inflationary scale. We will interpret them and build new theories of the Universe. We have createdmany synergies among disciplines, both proposed and unanticipated. We will create new synergies thatwere unimaginable before, e.g., between astronomy and string theory via new data, experiment andThe University of Tokyo- 2
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mathematics via statistics, and enhanced connection to condensed matter physics. We will stick to thebasic philosophy of the institute as originally proposed. The Five Questions are broad enough to encompass
rapid changes in everyday research objectives. Just in the first year of five-year extension, we successfully
recruited Hiromi Yokoyama, Yukari Ito, Tom Melia, Khee-Gan Lee, Tadayuki Takahashi, Tadashi Orita,
Atsushi Yagishita, Shinichiro Takeda, and Hiraku Nakajima, all excellent faculty hires who bring in newexpertise and opportunities.
Within the 10 years of existence, there have been major breakthroughs in our fields. A Higgs boson
was discovered, allowing us to contemplate the Universe less than a billionth of a second after the Big
Bang in a quantitative fashion, addressing “How did the Universe begin?” The new mixing angle among
neutrinos was discovered, allowing for experimental tests on how the anti-matter disappeared since the
Big Bang, addressing “Why do we exist?” Our PI, Takaaki Kajita was awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize inphysics. The fundamental lemma in the Langlands program proven by Ngô Bảo Châu used Hitchin fibrationthat was inspired by integrable systems in physics and formulated with algebraic geometry; it confirms
our choice of geometric approach and connection to physics in “What are the fundamental laws?” Becauseof these breakthroughs, we are readjusting ourselves getting prepared to the next breakthroughs.

3. System for Managing the Research Organization* Describe the research organization and management system that the center will use to carry out the research strategy and plan describedabove.
* In Appendix 1-3, list the Principle Investigators, enter the number of center personnel, and provide a diagram of the center’s management
system.

The current management structure allows for quick decisions by the directorate for recruitments andretentions, as well as for arranging timely workshops and visitors to enhance our research. We will develop
a wider “sense of ownership” of the Institute among younger members to carry the Institute into the
future. We optimize top-down decisions on day-to-day management while exploit bottom-up initiatives on
research agendas. The organization remains flat with no “departments” within the Institute, and the
Directorate is always open to new initiatives from the individual faculty members.
We have been paying special attention to foster young researchers. We make sure that they receive
sufficient exposure to secure their career paths, while learning the landscape of science on theinternational scene. Our policy requiring one to three months of travel a year outside Japan to promote
their research with presentations and collaborations, as well as hosting a large number of workshops andvisitors, has been extremely successful for this purpose. We intend our Assistant Professor positions to betenure-track, some joint with other institutes.
In addition, we take up the following challenges.
(6) propagate system reform
We have many achievements in system reform. We take the active role of an evangelist to make thesereforms permeate the system by working on other Japanese institutions to create split appointments
following success of Murayama (Berkeley) and Bondal (Steklov). Our administrative staff won fivePresident’s awards for improvement in business practice, and many of them are being used widely within
the University. The University of Tokyo was fortunate to institute another WPI center, International ResearchCenter for Neurointelligence (IRCN). We will work closely with IRCN both on the scientific aspects (similarity
between the large-scale structure of the universe and the network of neurons) and the administrative
practice (novel hiring schemes and support for international scientists). Having two WPI centers at thesame university, unparalleled in the current situation, should catalyze reform of the Japanese university
system as a whole.
(7) create a New Graduate Program
We believe working with graduate students is a must for a world-class research institution. It iswonderful that some of our faculty have access to students from traditional departments while some others
do not. We try to create an international graduate program with vigorous student exchanges. By a newprogram to bring Oxford students, three students have already joined and three more students arefollowing. Initial set of students are soon to obtain Ph.D. degrees. We also joined a new international
graduate program with physics (GSGC) to attract excellent graduate students from universities all over theworld, and teamed up with Department of Astronomy and Department of Earth and Planetary Science toextend the GSGC program.
(8) young students
It is crucial to inspire young students to secure the next generation of scientists. Building on the
success of our outreach program, we propose to conduct workshops to train scientists and high-school
teachers in order to reach out to young students far beyond our own direct contacts, and teachers used

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the material in the classroom in five high schools. Subsequently we tried the material directly on high school
students, and plan for another workshop to create a package that can be distributed widely. Since there
are other research institutions which also have such programs, such as the Perimeter Institute in Canada,rather than each of us trying to invent separate wheels, we may consider joining forces with them todevelop effective ways to reach out to high school students and to improve their STEM experience.
(9) stability and sustainability
Most projects in our fields have long lead times of at least ten years. We need to have a stable andsustainable organization. We will work closely with UTokyo administration to make a transition from themodel supported by WPI funds to a new model hosted by UTokyo. Starting with Japanese Fiscal Year 2018,¥520,000,000 is rolled into the University operating funds on permanent basis, making the institute finallyon a stable financial footing. University will place additional budget request this year to secure remaining
needed funds to maintain and possibly expand the institute beyond JFY2022 when the WPI funds finish.
The most important thing for the Kavli IPMU to do would be to demonstrate that it is worthy of public
support by producing ground-breaking discoveries in science, by training and mentoring students andyoung scientists to become world leaders, and by propagating systems reforms throughout universities inJapan. The directorate will enable our scientific staff members to perform at the highest levels by supporting
their initiatives and by providing them an ideal research environment, and to communicate theirachievements to our funding agencies and the general public.

4. International Circulation of Best Brains* Describe your policy and concrete plan for promoting the international circulation of the world’s best brains, which is an important functionof the WPI Academy.

From the development stage, we had a firm belief that the key to gaining international recognition is
to bring top-level leaders and talented young researchers from around the world, and to create anenvironment in which researchers in different fields learn each other’s languages and work together toward
common goals. We have established such a fascinating research environment here at the Kavli IPMU. It
functions as the center for the “brain circulation.” In 2017, we envision 26 world-leading PIs among which
8 PIs are international and 10 are on site. Out of 259 member researchers including faculty members,
postdoc, long-term visitors and graduate students, 91 (35%) are international and considered as worldclass. To keep the Kavli IPMU as a hub of exciting intellectual exchanges, we will keep to invite many
Nobel laureates in Physics, Fields Medalists and prominent researchers to stimulate young researchers.
Also we keep our policy that all full-time researchers have to spend one to three months abroad each year.
We successfully recruited topnotch scientists such as M. Kapranov, a former full professor at Yale, to
one of our first tenured positions. Given his well-known status as a leader in higher category theory anddriver behind many important mathematical concepts recently, this is a significant boost of ourinternational standing. His activity at the Kavil IPMU attracts the world best brains. Also we recruited M.
Hartz, a neutrino experimentalist, and retained K. Bundy and A. Leauthaud, a couple of astronomers, and
S. More, also an astronomer. These are testaments of our exciting research program that cannot be done
elsewhere in the world.

5. Support by Host institution* Describe measures that the host institution will take to support and sustain your WPI center. Describe your strategy for extending thesystem reforms achieved by the center via the WPI program to the host institution and other institutions.

At the time of the original proposal, UTokyo made many exceptions to the Kavli IPMU as a “special
district” within the University: flexible salary system, longer appointments than traditional fixed-term
positions, moving some PIs with advantageous arrangements with retirements from traditional
departments, appointments beyond the retirement age, etc. UTokyo also committed to build the main
research building specifically for the Kavli IPMU, and a new international lodge near the Kashiwa campus.
A creation of UTIAS in 2011 is outstanding support providing a permanent place for the Kavli IPMU within
the University. Following the interim evaluation, UTokyo made several measures to make the Kavli IPMU
sustainable. UTokyo guarantees 10 tenured positions, and permanent assignment of administrative staff.
UTokyo confirms that it is crucially important for the Kavli IPMU to have 26 permanent positions forthe core of faculty and to keep the critical mass. System reforms originated in the Kavli IPMU are awarded
UTokyo Special Prize for business innovation 4 times. Its unique measures are gradually spreading out
inside UTokyo and outside.

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6. Financial Measures* In Appendix 4, describe the measures to be taken by the host institution for sustaining the center’s functions and activities over a periodof 5 years, and describe what external funding will be used to carry out the center’s research activities.

UTokyo understands that the operating resource necessary to sustain the world “leading” premier
status is at least the current funding level from the WPI program. These figures are quite standard to run
so-called institute of advanced study in healthy conditions. UTokyo put together a plan for the 5-year
extension period and beyond. The budget request from UTokyo to MEXT has also been fully secured for
13 positions and for operation. The University puts an additional request as the top priority for sciencefields for the next year to sustain as its flagship beyond the WPI funding. The University will maintain andhopefully expand the Kavli IPMU even after WPI support finishes. As a result of the Kavli IPMU’s highvisibility, and also the University’s effort to sustain the Institute, the Kavli foundation boosted theendowment from ¥750M to ¥1250M ($1=¥100). The University will keep making effort during theextension period in many ways to boost the reputation of the Kavli IPMU to further increase theendowment. The Kavli IPMU and Hamamatsu Photonics K.K. established the Endowed Research Unit in2014 for 5-year program.

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Appendix 1

World Premier International Research Center Initiative (WPI)
List of Principal Investigators

 If the number of principal investigators exceeds 10, add columns as appropriate.
 Place an asterisk (*) by the name of the investigators who are considered to be ranked among the world’s top researchers.
 Give age as of 2 July 2018
 For investigators who cannot participate in the center project from its beginning, indicate the time that their participation will start in the“Notes” column.

Name

Age

Current affiliation(organization, department)

Kavli IPMU
(Director),
California Institute ofTechnology(Professor, Physics Deptand Mathematics Dept.,
Director, Burke Institute)
Kavli IPMU(Professor),
University of California,
Berkeley(Professor, Physics Dept)
UTokyo(Executive Vice President,
Professor, Dept ofPhysics),
Kavli IPMU
(Deputy Director)
Steklov Mathematical
Institute(Professor),
Kavli IPMU(Professor)

Academic degreeand current
specialties

Notes(Enter “new” or ongoing”)

Ph.D.
string theory

ongoing

Ph.D.
particle theory,cosmology

ongoing

Ph.D.
high energy
physics

ongoingPh.D.
mathematics

ongoingPh.D.
astroparticle
physics

ongoing

59

Ph.D.
UTokyoastroparticle(Director, Professor, ICRR)
physics

ongoing

7.Stavros Katsanevas*

64

University of Paris 7(Professor, Physics Dept)

Ph.D.
astroparticle
physics

ongoing

8.Masahiro Kawasaki*

UTokyo57(Professor, ICRR)

Ph.D.
particlecosmology

ongoingPh.D.
mathematics

ongoingPh.D.
mathematics

ongoing

1.Hirosi Ooguri*

56

2.Hitoshi Murayama*54

3.Hiroaki Aihara*

62

4.Alexey Bondal*

56

5.Kunio Inoue*

Tohoku University
52 (Director, Professor,
RCNS)

6.Takaaki Kajita*

9.Toshiyuki Kobayashi*

10.Toshitake Kohno*

UTokyo(Professor, Graduate
55
School of Mathematical
Sciences)
UTokyo(Professor, Graduate
62
School of Mathematical
Sciences)

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11.Masayuki Nakahata*

UTokyo(Director, Professor,
58
Kamioka Observatory,
ICRR)

12.Mihoko Nojiri*

55

Appendix 1

Ph.D.
astroparticle
physics

ongoing

Ph.D.
particle theory

ongoing

13.David Spergel*Princeton University
57 (Professor, Chair, Dept ofAstrophysical Sciences)Ph.D.
cosmology

ongoing

14.Naoshi Sugiyama*

56

Nagoya University(Professor, Physics Dept)

Ph.D.
cosmology

ongoing

15.Kentaro Hori*

52

Kavli IPMU(Professor)

Ph.D.
string theory

new16.Mikhail Kapranov*55

Kavli IPMU(Professor)

Ph.D.
mathematics

new

17.Young-Kee Kim*

55

University of Chicago(Professor)

Ph.D.
experimental
physics

new18.Eiichiro Komatsu*

Max Planck Institute for
Astrophysics
43 (Director of the
Department of PhysicalCosmology)

Ph.D.
cosmology

new19.Kai Martens*

54

Kavli IPMU
(Associate Professor)

Ph.D.
experimental
physics

new20.Shigeki Matsumoto*

45

Kavli IPMU
(Associate Professor)

Ph.D.
particle theory,cosmology

new

21.Shigetaka Moriyama*

UTokyo48 (Associate Professor,
ICRR)

Ph.D.
experimental
physics

new

22.Yasunori Nomura*

University of California,
44 Berkeley(Professor)

Ph.D.
particle physics

new

23.Masahiro Takada*

44

Ph.D.
cosmology/astrophysics

new

KEK
(Professor)

Kavli IPMU(Professor)

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Appendix 1

24.Yukinobu Toda*

38

Kavli IPMU
(Associate Professor)

25.Mark Vagins*

52

Kavli IPMU(Professor)

26.Naoki Yoshida*

UTokyo(Professor, Dept of
44 Physics)
Kavli IPMU(Professor)

27.Tadayuki Takahashi*

59

Kavli IPMU(Professor)

Ph.D.

mathematics

new

Ph.D.
astroparticle
physics

newPh.D.
astrophysics

new

Ph.D.
experimental
physicsnew

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Appendix 2

World Premier International Research Center Initiative (WPI)
The number of Center personnel
FY2017
Principal Investigators

26

Other Researchers

261

Post-Doctor researchers

62

Research Support Staffs

31

Administrative Staffs

10

Host Institute -1

The center nameAppendix 3

World Premier International Research Center Initiative (WPI)
Diagram of Management System

as of October 15, 2018

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