Subaru Prime Focus Spectrograph

"How did the Universe start?" ... "Will it end at some point?" ... "How did we come to exist?" These have been fundamental questions about the universe since the dawn of humankind. Surprisingly, we recently found that we know only about 4% of the universe composition. Remaining parts are made of "dark matter", which has never been detected directly, and "dark energy", which is much more mysterious negative pressure accelerating the expansion of the universe. What on earth are these "dark" things? How do they exist around us? How have they been acting on the visible entities in the universe such as stars and galaxies? The Subaru Prime Focus Spectrograph project squarely aims at addressing these long-standing questions. The innovative instrument under development enables us to take exposures of 2,400 astronomical objects simultaneously on such a large patch of sky as several times bigger than the full Moon. Moreover, PFS is a spectrometer. Namely, the lights from stars and galaxies are dispersed and recorded as spectra simultaneously covering a wide range of wavelengths ranging from the near-ultraviolet, through the visible, and up to the near-infrared regime. [Text and image from https://pfs.ipmu.jp/ ]



Collaboration home page


IGC members in PFS

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Joel Leja
About our wordmark
Monica The IGC wordmark was created by Monica Rincon Ramirez, while she was a graduate student at the Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos (IGC). Monica enjoys drawing new connections between fundamental theory and observations. Her graduate work includes specialized topics in general relativity, loop quantum gravity, and quantum fields in cosmological backgrounds. In particular, her thesis work focused on finding effective quantum corrections to gravitational phenomena from spinfoams, and applications to cosmology. She received her PhD in 2024.

The wordmark symbolizes the scope and variety of research at the IGC. The base of the image represents quantum gravity, evoking the quantum geometrical picture from spinfoams and loop quantum gravity. These are among the approaches to fundamental questions studied at the Center for Fundamental Theory. The middle of the image represents the Center for Theoretical and Observational Cosmology by galaxies embedded in a smooth surface, characteristic of spacetime in general relativity and the much larger physical scales studied in cosmology. Finally, at the top, the surface curves to an extreme, representing a supermassive black hole accompanied by an energetic jet. These elements depict an active galactic nucleus, inspired by Centaurus A. Just to the right, a pair of black holes approaches merger. This top portion of the wordmark represents the Center for Multimessenger Astrophysics, which specializes in the study of high-energy phenomena in the universe.