Registration form at the bottom.
The “Lite satellite for the study of B-mode polarization and Inflation from cosmic background Radiation Detection” (LiteBIRD) is a JAXA-led international mission in collaboration with several space agencies and research institutes, slated for launch in the early 2030’s. Its primary goal will be to detect primordial B-modes in the polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), which will be “smoking gun” evidence for cosmic inflation.
Some of the leading Japanese scientists responsible for the LiteBIRD mission will be visiting NWO-I/SRON, the Netherlands Institute for Space Research. The Principal Investigator, Prof. M. Hazumi from KEK/QUP, will give a colloquium on the mission (see below for title and abstract). This is a great opportunity to explore a possible Dutch scientific interest in CMB science and LiteBIRD, in addition to potential Dutch technical contributions.
The colloquium will be given by Masashi Hazumi on February 15th at 11.00 at SRON (Niels Bohrweg 4, 2333 CA Leiden). After an informal lunch, we will continue with an open discussion about different ways Dutch scientists might be able to support and participate in the mission. We particularly welcome inputs from early career researchers and scientists with an interest in cosmology and related fields (see colloquium abstract).
It will be possible to follow the colloquium via the following Zoom link:
Zoom link
Title: Probing cosmic inflation and beyond with the LiteBIRD cosmic microwave background polarization survey
Abstract: LiteBIRD, the next-generation CMB satellite, is set for launch in Japan’s fiscal year 2032, marking a major advancement in the exploration of primordial cosmology and fundamental physics. Orbiting the Sun-Earth Lagrangian point L2, this JAXA-led strategic L-class mission will conduct a comprehensive mapping of the CMB polarization across the entire sky. During its three-year mission, LiteBIRD will employ three telescopes within 15 unique frequency bands (34-448 GHz), targeting a sensitivity of 2.2μK-arcmin and a resolution of 0.5° at 100 GHz. Its primary goal is to measure the
tensor-to-scalar ratio r with δr=0.001 or better, including systematic error and margin. If r≥0.01, LiteBIRD expects >5 sigma detections in the ℓ=2..10 and ℓ=11..200 ranges separately, providing crucial insight into the early universe. LiteBIRD is also expected to lead many other scientific topics including the optical depth, reionization, neutrino masses, cosmic birefringence, the hot gas map, CMB spectral distortions, primordial magnetic fields, and galactic astrophysics.
Program:
10:30 – Welcome at reception
11:00 – Colloquium
12:30 – Lunch
13:00 – Open discussion with the community
15:00 – Closing remarks
Location
SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research is located at the Leiden Bio Science Park, Niels Bohrweg 4, 2333 CA Leiden
Parking
Visitors can park a car in the Parking Ehrenfestweg, a 6 minute walk from SRON. This parking has charging stations for electric vehicles. Navigate to ‘Ehrenfestweg Leiden’ and once on this street, you see the parking to your left, in the left-hand street (red line on this map). After parking, walk the walking route (shown in green here), from the garage to SRON.
Registration
The registration has been closed.
