By Jeremiah Hugo
Four years ago, I started learning Japanese. It was fun to have a new activity aside from schoolwork, but I had to put it on hold, as college was imminent. And it didn’t help that the world wasn’t going to open up anytime soon, so when was I ever going to use all the Japanese I had learned?
Fast forward to March: I checked my email on a normal Sunday night, and I saw that I had been accepted into the UTRIP program. I sighed in relief; I finally had an internship for the summer.
Not only did I have an opportunity to go to Japan – the country I’d wanted to visit since high school – dangling right in front of me, but I also had a chance to pursue cosmology by dabbling in particle physics. Within an hour, I had accepted the offer.
Typically, when I go to new places, I like to know exactly what I’m getting into. However, I didn’t feel the need to do so at the time. From day one, I thought: “I’m already comfortable here.
There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.” But, I already felt the clock ticking. Six weeks was going to feel like the blink of an eye, so I knew that I’d have to make the most of my time in Japan.
And I did. During the week, I learned about various topics, ranging from the passage of particles through matter to the Diffuse Supernova Neutrino Background to neutral current quasi-elastic interactions. In addition to these topics, I struggled with Geant4 to simulate particle interactions with various material media, and I analyzed the data from the simulations with ROOT. This was only part of the preliminary exercises that Professor Nakajima had assigned me. Initially, I couldn’t grasp the point of these exercises because I didn’t get the direction in which I was working towards the SAMURAI proposal. After many days of tackling the preliminary exercises alone, seeking help from Mizuno-san (one of the graduate students in the Nakajima-Yokoyama laboratory), and clarifying with Prof. Nakajima, I became confident in navigating Geant4 and Root. At the end of my internship, I created a method to accurately reconstruct the excitation energy of N-15 during an O-16 (p, 2p) reaction via a Geant4 simulation. In other words, Phase 1a of the SAMURAI proposal had come to fruition.
On the weekends, though, I focused less on physics and more on exploring Tokyo. Traveling around Tokyo required learning how to use the subway system, and I did so with ease by the end of my stay. By riding the trains, I was able to go to so many places in Tokyo: I found the staircase in the last scene of 君の名は。in Shinjuku; experienced the vibrant nightlife in Shibuya; explored every floor of Radio Kaikan and ate at a restaurant in Yodobashi-Akiba in Akihabara; hunted for books I could read in the bookstores that covered every block of Jimbocho; and passed through Shimokitazawa on my way to the Toudai karuta club’s practice match, during which I watched two Class A players duke it out. To conclude my sightseeing, I visited the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building Observatory and took in several breathtaking views of Tokyo.
In summary, my UTRIP experience could be divided into two parts: (1) six weeks of overcoming challenges and learning; and (2) six weeks of pure joy. The difficulties I faced were resolved due to Prof. Nakajima and Mizuno-san’s patience. I knew that my computer science skills had improved since my last internship and that I wouldn’t understand some aspects of Geant4 simply by reading a manual or Googling the issues I encountered. This struggle was essential for my pursuit of cosmology. Now that I’ve learned more about particle physics, I’m going to retain the knowledge I’ve gained for the future. Because of Prof. Nakajima and Mizuno-san’s support, I’m one step closer to becoming a cosmologist. As for the other half of UTRIP, I could not experience everything that Japanese culture has to offer without FUTI. Because of FUTI, Japan is no longer a distant country on the map that my future self will travel to; rather, it is a country that has left an imprint on my mind after all the sightseeing and speaking with the locals.
I also have Sugie-san, Jouno-san, and Ikeda-san from the UTRIP office to thank, as they were a core part of the UTRIP experience. I’d like to visit them if I ever return to Japan. In a nutshell, this summer was both an unparalleled experience that I am grateful for and an opportunity that’ll keep me moving forward towards the future that I desire.
