For those who are interested in doing research with Koichi Hamaguchi as graduate students

(The following content was last updated in November 2024)

Thank you for your interest!

I am a member of the High Energy Physics Theory Group at the department of physics, faculty of science, University of Tokyo. As of November 2024, the group consists of seven faculty members, two postdocs and 19 graduate students. The interests of the group include a wide range of topics in particle physics phenomenology and field theory, particle cosmology, and string theory. (See here for the member list, seminars, recent papers, etc.)

I am interested in physics beyond the Standard Model, and I have been working on phenomenology and particle cosmology. I would also like to pay attention to the latest results from high energy experiments and astrophysical observations, and then feed them back to theoretical research. (See my homepage for my recent papers, the publication list, etc.) There is also a YouTube video where I talk about some of the backgrounds of my research.

In the actual research activities, the students are not always working with their supervisors; many of them, in particular Ph.D. students, often collaborate with the other members of the group as well as people outside the group.

If you are interested in applying for my group, read the information below, and follow the instruction in 4. Application for my group.

1. Graduate Course

Let me first list some points in the graduate course of our department, which may be different from most of the Universities/Institutes outside of Japan.
See also this informal guide.

It is not common in Japan that the students receive full scholarships from their supervisors or department. Many of the faculty members (including me) do not have a grant budget that can be used to fully support their students. The students should apply for some program by themselves in order to receive a scholarship, before or after the enrollment. See below for more details. (There are also TA/RA positions, but the salary is not sufficient to cover the living costs.)
In addition, the graduate students should pay the entrance fee as well as the tuition fee to the University. (See here for more information.) There are fee exemption systems, but I don't know the conditions for that and how likely one can get it.
Unfortunately, the above two points apply to many of the Universities in Japan. I think that all the graduate students should be financially supported, but it is not easy to change the system. I hope it will gradually change in (near?) future.
There are a master's program (usually 2 years) and a doctor program (usually 3 years). Note that you cannot directly start from the doctor program unless you have a master's degree. Most of the doctor students in our high energy theory group received their master's degree here and continued to the doctor course. You may regard it as a kind of 5 years doctor program, with a master's thesis and qualification in the middle.
There are not so many lectures in the graduate course. Only about 10 credits are required in order to graduate, which can be earned even within one semester. In other words, there is very little coursework, and you have a lot of time for research! (and thesis.)
The courses can be found here (see the link ``Curriculum for Graduate course"). As you can see, there are no courses for basic quantum mechanics, electromagnetism, etc., in the graduate course. There are lectures on QFT and particle physics, but they are not sufficient to start research in theoretical particle physics. Students in our group learn QFT and particle physics mostly by reading textbooks, usually together with other students, taking turns reading and explaining the books. (Typically one or more faculty members also join these seminars to help the students.)
The supervisor of each graduate student is determined basically at the time of admission procedures, not after the enrollment. (This is not necessarily the case in other Universities in Japan.)

2. Programs and Scholarships

For the list of Programs and Scholarships, please see this summary page.

3. Application Procedures

There are basically two application procedures, a domestic one (in Japanese), and the admission procedure for international applicants (see here and here).

I assume that you (those who are reading this page) are interested in the one for international applicants. (For the domestic one, see Q&A below.) There are two steps:
(i) contact prospective supervisors and obtain his/her approval before submitting an official application --- a pre-selection process before the official application.
(ii) submit the application document (GRE, essay, etc…) to the department. Then the committee in the department will select qualified students among all the applicants for the physics department.
Note that the approval in (i) does not guarantee the approval in (ii).
The process in (i) depends on the individual faculty members.

4. Application for my group

Basically, I take international students only through the GSGC and the regular admission (September enrollment). If you are interested in applying for my group through the GSGC and/or the regular admission (September enrollment), proceed to
the joint pre-selection process
and follow the instruction there.

The schedule of the pre-selection procedure every year is planned as follows: for the enrollment in September in the year of 2020+(n+1), (i) the application form is opened in September-October 2020+n, (ii) it is closed in October-November 2020+n, and (iii) the result of the pre-selection is notified at around the beginning of December 2020+n.

Note also that, in the official application, you are required to submit the GRE score, and the GRE test is held only a few times per year. Check the GRE test dates.

5. Q&A

Q: Do you also accept applications through the other admission procedures, such as the April-enrollment regular admission, the MEXT scholarship, etc?

A: As I wrote above, basically I take international students only through the GSGC and the September-enrollment regular admission, in order to avoid multiple pre-selection procedures in the same year. If there is some special reason that you cannot apply through the joint pre-selection process, write me an email.

Q: I have a master's degree. Do you take students directly from the doctor program (3 years)?

A: No, not usually, unless the student already has sufficient research experiences (e.g. having written papers) in the research field of my interest.

Q: Can I apply through the domestic admission procedure?

A: Yes. --- In fact, currently most of the graduate students in our department enroll through it. (Most of them graduate from Japanese Universities.)
Unfortunately, however, the domestic admission procedure is inconvenient for international applicants, because (i) the application documents as well as written exams are written in Japanese, (ii) the applicants have to come to Tokyo in summer to take the written and oral exams, (iii) (as far as I know) there is no grant/scholarship that starts from the beginning of the master's course, and (iv) the enrollment is in April only.

Q: Do you take summer internship students (or other short-term program students)?

A: No. I think it is very difficult to think about a project (at least in the field of high energy theory) which can be completed within a short time.

Q: Do you take Graduate International Research Student ("kenkyusei")?

A: No. Note that a "kenkyusei" is not entitled to receive any degree or qualification on completion of the program. And as I wrote above, it is difficult to prepare a short-term project.