Institute of Astronomy, National Tsing Hua University

Observational Cosmology Group

Tomo Goto
https://sites.google.com/view/nthucosmologygroup/home

Research Field

Physics
Introduction

Professor Tomo Goto obtained a Ph.D. from the University of Tokyo and currently serves as a professor at the Institute of Astronomy of National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan. His specializes in astronomy. He has previously held research fellow positions at the University of Hawaii and the Niels Bohr Institute. In 2006, he was part of the JAXA team involved in the launch of the AKARI infrared space telescope. He has achieved the publication of 100 refereed papers in international journals in 2015. His research focuses on the galaxy evolution, dark energy, Planet 9, using the largest telescopes around world, including NASA's new JWST.

He  has been selected as one of the top 2% researchers in the world in the 2021-2023 Stanford University rankings thee years in a row. 

Here are some past newspaper coverages:

Why is the Universe expanding? What is the nature of Dark Matter? When and how have supermassive black holes formed? How have galaxies evolved? What is the physical origins for fast radio bursts? Our group tackles with outstanding questions in cosmology using the largest telescopes in the world, such as the 6.5m James Webb space telescope, AKARI space telescope, ALMA, Subaru, and, many other telescopes in the world. Any motivated students are welcome.

Research Topics
  • Galaxy/black hole evolution with NASA's James Webb Space Telescope.
  • A search for distant metal poor brown dwarfs with the JWST.     
  • Dark energy
  • Planet 9
  • Fast Radio Bursts
Honor

* Japan Society of Promotion of Science Research Fellow (SPD1), 2008-2010

A PASJ Excellent Paper Award to "The Environment of Passive Spiral Galaxies in the SDSS", Goto et al. et al. 2003,PASJ,55,757

* Japan Society of Promotion of Science Research Fellow (DC1), 2001-2003

* Japan Ikuei-kai Fellowship, 1999-2001

Educational Background

* University of Tokyo, Ph.D., Physics, 2003 (Adviser: Sadanori Okamura, Maki Sekiguchi)

* University of Tokyo, M.A., Physics, 2001 (Adviser: Maki Sekiguchi)

* Kyoto University, B.S., Faculty of Science, 1999

* Visiting Research Scholar at Carnegie Mellon University, 2001-2003

Job Description

Finding Obscured Galaxies/Black Holes/Brown Dwarfs from the James Webb Space Telescope PRIMER/SMILES fields

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are mysterious cosmic enigmas: millisecond flashes of radio waves, as bright as our Sun but lasting thousands of times shorter, hailing from across the universe. These fleeting blasts happen thousands of times every day but yet remain unexplained. Our team is building a new radio telescope dedicated to FRBs in Taiwan. This BURSTT telescope is expected to revolutionize the field in the following two aspects: (1) BURSTT will locate all the FRB positions accurately. Positional uncertainty was one of the biggest obstacles with previous telescopes. (2) BURSTT will distinguish all repeating FRBs and one-time FRBs, whose physical origins are most likely different. Heterogeneous samples were another major problem in previous studies. The BURSTT telescope will start detecting FRBs this year. I am seeking enthusiastic students who analyse and make a breakthrough discovery with the new BURSTT data.

More details can be found here, https://sites.google.com/view/nthucosmologygroup/home

Preferred Intern Educational Level

Motivated students are all welcome. 

Skill sets or Qualities

Basic coding skills help.

Job Description

Finding Obscured Galaxies/Black Holes/Brown Dwarfs from the James Webb Space Telescope PRIMER/SMILES fields

It has been an unanswered question that how many dusty galaxies/black holes have been undetected from the state-of-the-art observational surveys. Most faint dusty galaxies/black holes have been beyond the reach of the previous space infrared telescopes such as Spitzer (85 cm), and AKARI (65 cm). With the advent of the 6.5m James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), a revolution is happening. With 100 times better sensitivity of the 6.5m telescope than AKARI and Spitzer, we now can reveal previously undetected faint infrared sources. Dusty galaxies and black holes have distinct characteristics in the mid-infrared wavelengths. Active galactic nuclei have characteristic emission in the mid-infrared due to the high temperature of the warm dust. Mid-infrared emissions of dusty star-forming galaxies are dominated by the Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon emissions. The JWST PRIMER/SMILES fields provide us with a 17 times larger area coverage in mid-infrared wavelengths than the early release observations. Taking advantage of the JWST's superb sensitivity in the mid-infrared we identify such galaxies, black holes and brown dwarfs, previously unseen with any other telescopes.

Additional information can be found here, https://sites.google.com/view/nthucosmologygroup/home

Preferred Intern Educational Level

Motivated students are all welcome.

Skill sets or Qualities

Basic knowledge of coding is a plus.