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Nakamura Lab
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The lab creates hypernuclei with accelerators to tackle the mysteries of neutron stars.
AboutAbout the lab
Studying miniature neutron stars on Earth
The Nakamura Lab studies hypernuclei, which are quantum many-body systems containing strange quarks.
Through experiments at high-intensity electron accelerator facilities, the lab deepens the understanding of baryon-baryon interactions, that is, the extended nuclear force.
Building on this, the lab takes on the "hyperon puzzle," a mystery of heavy neutron stars.
Day to day, the lab works on experiment design, data analysis, and equipment development at the Hongo Campus, and travels to accelerator facilities in Japan and abroad during beam time.
Key terms
- Hypernucleus
- An atomic nucleus in which a particle containing a strange quark has joined an ordinary nucleus
- Strange quark
- A type of quark, related to the quarks that make up protons and neutrons, that is not found in ordinary atomic nuclei
- Neutron star
- An extremely dense object packed with neutrons, formed when a star is crushed at the end of its life
NewsLab news
A collaborative research group discovered 22 new isotopes using a newly developed lead beam
Results of precision measurements of the hypertriton published in Phys. Rev. Lett.
A master's student won the Nuclear Physics Poster Presentation Award at the Nuclear Three-Group Young Researchers' Summer School
A master's student won the Student Excellent Presentation Award from the Physical Society of Japan
ResearchResearch themes
At high-intensity electron accelerator facilities, the lab studies hypernuclei, which are quantum many-body systems containing strange quarks. By deepening the understanding of baryon-baryon interactions, the lab takes on the hyperon puzzle, a mystery of heavy neutron stars.
*Illustrative imageProbing hypernuclei with electron beams
The lab is carrying out electromagnetic production spectroscopy of Lambda hypernuclei, an approach it pioneered, at Jefferson Lab in the United States, as part of an international collaboration led by groups from Japan, the United States, and Italy.
*Illustrative imageMeasuring mass with decay pions
The lab measures the pions emitted when hypernuclei undergo weak decay in order to determine the mass of the original hypernucleus with high precision. This spectroscopy experiment is conducted at the MAMI accelerator at Mainz University in Germany.
MembersFaculty
The members of the Nakamura Lab consist of faculty staff, graduate students, and undergraduate students.As of 2026
- ProfessorNakamura Satoshi NPublications ↗
- Assistant ProfessorSho NagaoPublications ↗
- Assistant ProfessorManami FujitaPublications ↗
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Report an errorAbout the images
The top and research theme images are illustrative and were not taken at the lab. They are cropped from Wikimedia Commons images. Cropped CC BY-SA images are provided under the same CC BY-SA license as the original (version shown on each line).
- Top image: “Artist's Illustration of Neutron Star (2009-cassio-more-2 - neutron)” X-ray: NASA/CXC/Southampton/W. Ho et al.; Illustration: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss / Public domain (cropped)
- Probing hypernuclei with electron beams: “Particle accelerator DSC09089” David Monniaux / CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped)
- Measuring mass with decay pions: “Mami dsa” Ostrickm / CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (Suzuki Lab): “RIKEN Superconducting Ring Cyclotron P4208172” Kestrel / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (Yokoyama-Nakajima Lab): “MiniBooNE” Fred Ullrich / Public domain (cropped)
- Related lab (Liang Lab): “NuclideMap stitched 2” NuclideMap.PNG: The viewer derivative work: Neokortex (talk) / Public domain (cropped)
- Related lab (Itow Lab): “Neutrino detector - National Museum of Nature and Science, Tokyo - DSC07827” Daderot / CC0 (cropped)
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