Research Coordination of the Black Hole Astronomy

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Black holes, of which the existence is predicted by the Einstein's general relatively, has a basic importance affecting our fundamental recognition of nature. The preseent priority research area has been set up in order to significantly promote the black hole science for which Japan has been contributing to a great extent. Our method is primarily 'experimental and observational, detecting via space observations X-rays and gamma-rays emerging from black holes as the matter is swallowed into or expelled from them. The research involves collaborations with theoretical and numerical investigators. Through the 5 years of research term, we thus operated the HETE-2 satellite, helped the instrumental calibration onboard Swift, and put the Suzaku spacecraft into orbit on 2005 July 10. Our activity also contributed to the preparation of two important astrophysics missions, namely the US gamma-ray mission GLAST, and the MAXI mission to be onboard the International Space Station. For future observ … More ations, we developed such instrumentation as X-ray calorimeters, various X-ray polarimeters, new X-ray CCDs, and gamm-ray Compton cameras, and conducted a few balloon experiment in the course. Related theoretical/numerical studies were performed extensively.Through these research activities, we have; discovered that gamma-ray bursts are generated when massive stars at the farthest Universe collapse into black holes; successfully detected general relativistic effects from giant black holes; identified promising candidates for intermediate-mass black holes; and found four spectral states from accreting black-hole binaries. The obtained results include new knowledge on relativistic jets launched by black holes, and black-hole related nucleosynthesis. Our achievements thus strengthen the existence of black holes, and give much improved knowledge on these enigmatic objects. The results are expected to accelerate our future black-hole studies, using, e.g, the NeXT X-ray mission which is under preparation. We have published more than 300 papers on refereed journals, and conducted more than 100 scientific presentations on international conferences. Less