SOKENDAI KEK Tsukuba/J-PARC Summer Student Program 2023

The KEK summer student program calls for students in FY2023. The major part of the program will be financially supported by SOKENDAI, the Graduate University for Advanced Studies, and KEK IINAS-NX program.

Introduction/Overview

KEK is the center of research in high energy accelerator science in Japan. Education for students is one of important missions. As one of educational programs, KEK offers opportunities for both national and international students to study at KEK/J-PARC. The participants can experience research through hands-on work at KEK Tsukuba/J-PARC where versatile research projects are being actively performed in the fields of particle and nuclear physics, material and life science, and accelerator science.

In the program, students belong to one of research groups and conduct research work under the supervision of researchers in a group staying at Tokai campus (where J-PARC resides) or Tsukuba campus of KEK for weeks. In some cases, students can have an opportunity to work with SOKENDAI students, or postdocs in host research groups.

Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex (J-PARC) is the research facility with the world-class high intensity proton beam. Research projects at J-PARC explore origin of matter and life in the fields of particle and nuclear physics, material and life science with the state-of-art technologies in accelerators and related fields. J-PARC is operated jointly by KEK and JAEA.

Stay period

Up to 8 weeks from middle of June to middle of August. In case of theory group, the maximum period is 4 weeks. The actual period will be discussed and decided after the selection. Extension of stay period for other business is NOT allowed.

Those who cannot participate in this period, can specify preferred period in the application. Even in such cases, the maximum period is 8 weeks and it cannot be beyond the Japanese fiscal year 2023 which ends in March 2024.

Eligibility

Intended grade of students of this program is later half of undergraduate course and early part of graduate course (~ master course) irrespective of international/Japanese students. It is desirable for students to have leaned dynamics, electromagnetism and quantum mechanics. But this is a guideline and it may depend on the matching with hosting research group. We encourage you to contact us if it is uncertain that you are applicable or not.

Summer Students join experimental groups engaged in the following fields either at Tsukuba campus or at J-PARC:

　- Elementary Particle physics
　- Nuclear Physics
　- Material & life science
　- Accelerator science
　- Advanced Detection System(Sensors/ Electronics/Computing)
　- Theory (computational methods in quantum field theory, i.e. Lattice QCD)

We plan to prepare a new program for Structural Biology. Please choose ”Material & life science” if you are interested in such a program.

Support

Types of costs covered by the program is as follows,

For international participants;
　- airfares
　- accommodation fees for KEK/J-PARC dorms
　- per diems (fixed amount; 1,500 yen/day)
　- domestic travel costs between the airport(Narita/Haneda) to KEK/J-PARC

Costs for visas and medical insurances are NOT covered by the program. Flight tickets for participants are arranged by the organizers and the airfares are directly paid to travel agencies.
Travel costs for international participants are reimbursed by way of cash basically within first two weeks upon their arrivals.

For national participants;
　- accommodation fees for KEK/J-PARC dorms
　- per diems (fixed amount; 1,500 yen/day)
　- domestic travel costs, calculated based on KEK financial rules

Travel costs are paid to national participants by way of bank transfer.

For staff researchers in sending countries,
Extra quota of participants for students who are supported by own country can be considered.
Please contact us “kekssp-sec (at) ml.post.kek.jp” for such case.

Application & selection
The call has been closed. Many thanks for your application!

Email the following documents to the mailing list “kyodo2(at)mail.kek.jp”. Please note that the amount of data is less than 5MB, otherwise your mail to the mailing list will bounce back to you.
・ CV
・ Official transcript of academic record
・ application form
・ Recommendation letter (at least one)
・ provide your registration information at Registration

* Please ask your supervisor to send a recommendation letter directly to us “kyodo2(at)mail.kek.jp”.

Application Deadline : March 1 (Wed.) 9:00AM (Japan time)

Selection will be made based on the documents and if necessary, also on interview (via network is allowed).
Selection result of each applicant is scheduled to be informed in April, 2023.

Example of research experience/Alumni

PHOTO : SOKENDAI J-PARC Summer student program 2017 – 2019

Example of Research

Note

There are radiation controlled areas at both KEK and J-PARC.
Only those students, who are registered as a radiation worker by their home institute can perform work and experiments in these controlled areas.

Contact information

・Application document, administrative questions, life in Japan;
　　　KEK SOKENDAI Office ( kyodo2(a)mail.kek.jp )

・Questions on research, life, anything;
　　 Summer Student Program Secretariats ( kekssp-sec(a)ml.post.kek.jp )

KEK:SOKENDAI