Science and technology development for ELT in Japan
M. Iye^1
1 National Astronomical Observatory, Japan
Abstract The Future Planning Working Group of the optical/infrared astronomy community of Japan finished its two year study in March 2005 and compiled their report (for the moment available only in Japanese). The group identified high priority science cases for the decade 2010s on various subjects for optical/infrared astronomy based on the recent findings and theoretical predictions. The subjects covers areas from solar/extra-solar planets, stars/star-formation/supernovae, Galaxy/galaxies/clusters, quasar/AGNs, to the Universe/cosmology. To make big steps in these areas, the report showed that the realization of a 30m class ELT in the decade of 2010s and a space mid-infrared telescope mission SPICA are the obvious goals for the coming decade.

On the part of ELT-related activity, NAOJ established the ELT project office in April 2005 to carry out phase-A studies. Considering the scale and the scope of the ELT projects, the ELT project office of NAOJ concentrated effort on a few new research and development areas that might well contribute to making ELT projects a reality. Fabrication of mirror segments adopting newly developed zero-expansion ceramics material and ultra-high precision machining expertise, for instance, is one such original attempt which might revolutionalize the telescope business.

The author, as the leader of the NAOJ ELT project office and also the chief editor of the Future Plannning Working Group Report on "Optical and Infrared Astronomy for 2010s", will report on these activities made in Japan's community.

---

File translated from T_EX by T_TH, version 3.33.
On 20 Oct 2005, 17:59.