Japanese balloon base at the Taiki Aerospace Research Field became operational in 2008. The new base is designed to launch larger balloons with greater safety and to perform balloon operation more effectively than ever. The next-generation balloons, such as the high-altitude balloon of ultra-thin film and the super-pressure balloon, are being successfully developed and are close to their practical use. In the article, we review the history and the outline of scientific balloon as well as recent developments of balloon technologies.
In recent years, the density matrix renormalization group method has been developed quite rapidly, based on quantum information perspective, such as entanglement entropy. Efficient numerical techniques for time evolution and two-dimensional quantum systems are proposed. They will lead to a major breakthrough in current condensed matter physics. This review reports fresh ideas behind these techniques.
One can observe photoemission in the molecular frame with the application of angle-resolved photoelectron-fragment-ion coincidence method. This approach has a potential to open the door into the new world of photoionization dynamics research, i.e., to reveal new phenomena which were veiled by the rotation motion of molecules. In this article, we review recent experimental results on photoionizaton dynamics which have been achieved for the first time by observing photoemission in the molecular frame.
Although the presence of dark matter has been established, its physical nature remains an open question. The precise measurement of the spatial distribution of dark matter in clusters of galaxies may provide a clue to its nature. In this article, we examine whether "superlens" clusters which show specutacular strong gravitational lensing are consistent with the current standard structure formation scenario, and discuss their expected properties.
Red blood cells have high deformability and deform to a parachute shape in microvascular flow. We review our recent study on the dynamics of red blood cells and lipid vesicles in simple shear flow and in capillary flow. The coupling between their deformations and dynamic modes generate very rich behavior.
It has been widely believed on the basis of fluid dynamics that we may ignore the density change in a liquid, or assume incompressibility, for slow simple shear deformation where inertia effects can be neglected. Contrary to this common belief, we recently found that an intrinsic coupling between flow and density fluctuations via the density dependence of shear viscosity can induce the enhancement of density fluctuations (implying a violation of the incompressibility condition) and destabilize the homogeneous state of a liquid even under simple shear flow. Here we discuss the universality and implications of this novel physical mechanism.