Measurements in the infrared wavelength domain allow direct assessment of the physical state and energy balance of cool matter in space, enabling the detailed study of the processes that govern the formation and evolution of stars and planetary systems in galaxies over cosmic time. Previous infrared missions revealed a great deal about the obscured Universe, but were hampered by limited sensitivity.

SPICA takes the next step in infrared observational capability by combining a large 2.5-meter diameter telescope, cooled to below 8 K, with instruments employing ultra-sensitive detectors. A combination of passive cooling and mechanical coolers will be used to cool both the telescope and the instruments. With mechanical coolers the mission lifetime is not limited by the supply of cryogen. With the combination of low telescope background and instruments with state-of-the-art detectors SPICA provides a huge advance on the capabilities of previous missions.

SPICA instruments offer spectral resolving power ranging from R ~50 through 11 000 in the 17–230 μm domain and R ~28.000 spectroscopy between 12 and 18 μm. SPICA will provide efficient 30–37 μm broad band mapping, and small field spectroscopic and polarimetric imaging at 100, 200 and 350 μm. SPICA will provide infrared spectroscopy with an unprecedented sensitivity of ~5 × 10−20 W m−2 (5σ/1 h)—over two orders of magnitude improvement over what earlier missions. This exceptional performance leap, will open entirely new domains in infrared astronomy; galaxy evolution and metal production over cosmic time, dust formation and evolution from very early epochs onwards, the formation history of planetary systems.

IR spectroscopy in the range 12–230 μm with the SPace IR telescope for Cosmology and Astrophysics (SPICA) will reveal the physical processes governing the formation and evolution of galaxies and black holes through cosmic time, bridging the gap between the James Webb Space Telescope and the upcoming Extremely Large Telescopes at shorter wavelengths and the Atacama Large Millimeter Array at longer wavelengths. The SPICA, with its 2.5-m telescope actively cooled to below 8 K, will obtain the first spectroscopic determination, in the mid-IR rest-frame, of both the star-formation rate and black hole accretion rate histories of galaxies, reaching lookback times of 12 Gyr, for large statistically significant samples. Densities, temperatures, radiation fields, and gas-phase metallicities will be measured in dust-obscured galaxies and active galactic nuclei, sampling a large range in mass and luminosity, from faint local dwarf galaxies to luminous quasars in the distant Universe. Active galactic nuclei and starburst feedback and feeding mechanisms in distant galaxies will be uncovered through detailed measurements of molecular and atomic line profiles. The SPICA’s large-area deep spectrophotometric surveys will provide mid-IR spectra and continuum fluxes for unbiased samples of tens of thousands of galaxies, out to redshifts of z ~ 6.

A two-dimensional, finite-element calculation was performed to simulate the development of a snowdrift. The underlying two-dimensional topography was taken as the lower boundary, and this changed as the drift developed. The two-dimensional wind field was calculated from the Navier–Stokes equations. The calculation was performed until a quasi-steady state was reached, and the pattern of erosion and deposition was estimated by computing the divergence of snowdrift transport. Considering a snowdrift as a new surface, the wind field was then recalculated. Simulated results were compared with outdoor observations of the wind field and snowdrifts. The results were in fairly good agreement with each other, but more detailed research is regarded as being necessary.

Fluidized snow was produced in a cold laboratory and its viscosity and heat transfer were studied. The viscosity of the fluidized snow was measured with a modified Stormer-type viscometer. It was found that the apparent viscosity decreased with increasing air velocity and decreasing particle diameter. Two mechanisms were suggested as producing the viscosity of the fluidized snow on the basis of the plot of the viscosity against the reciprocal of the air velocity.

The heat-transfer coefficient was obtained by measuring the temperature of a cooled brass sphere suspended in the fluidized snow. The heat-transfer coefficient in the fluidized snow was three or four times larger than that in an air flow containing no snow particles. The increase was attributed to the enhanced turbulence of air flow and the collision of snow particles; the contribution of the latter was estimated to be 80 to 90% of the total increase due to the fluidization of snow. These results were also confirmed in an artificial blowing snow produced in a cold horizontal wind-tunnel by measuring the heat-transfer coefficient, wind velocity, and drift density.

Blowing snow was produced artificially in a cold wind-tunnel, and various measurements were conducted including particle diameters, concentrations, saltation lengths heat transport and electric charge. The mean diameter of blowing snow particles decreased only slightly with increasing height; in the saltation layer, standard deviation was large and velocities were scattered in a wide range, suggesting the complex dynamic process on taking-off. The mean saltation length ranged from a few cm to 40 cm increasing with wind velocity.

When wind blew without snow drifting, the static air pressure on the snow surface was smaller at higher levels, the vertical pressure gradient being negative. The pressure gradient became positive when blowing snow was initiated eg +9.6 Pa/m at 11.2 m/s and -8.3 °C. The magnitude of à downward force acting on a saltating snow partice caused by the pressure gradient was not large enough to explain the downward acceleration found from photographic analyses of particle trajectories.

Blowing snow particles were charged negatively the magnitude of charge increased with lowering temperature. Increase in vertical heat transfer was found in blowing snow by measuring the temperature of the air at various levels; the increase is reflected on that in the apparent turbulent diffusion coefficient.

The objective of this study was to examine temporal and regional variations of sporadic Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (sCJD) in a retrospective study using Japanese national surveillance data from 2001 to 2010. We calculated the incidence of sCJD by age and sex, derived the standardized incidence in each of the 47 prefectures, and performed spatial disease clustering analysis. The average annual incidence of sCJD was 1·026 per million in men (637 patients) and 1·132 per million in women (733 patients), a significant sex difference after adjustment for age (P = 0·001). The ratios of familial CJD to sCJD apparently increased between 2001–2005 and 2006–2010, possibly as a result of the nationwide introduction of genetic testing after 2006. Based on the data of 2006–2010, certain geographical clusters of sCJD were identified. The incidence of sCJD was higher in several specific prefectures compared to the national average. Thus, sCJD appears to have regional variations, suggesting the existence of genetic or region-specific factors affecting the incidence of the disease.

The near-infrared (NIR) spectral range (2–5 μm) contains a number of interesting features for the study of the interstellar medium. In particular, the aromatic and aliphatic components in carbonaceous dust can be investigated most efficiently with the NIR spectroscopy. We analyze NIR spectra of the diffuse Galactic emission taken with the Infrared Camera onboard AKARI and find that the aliphatic to aromatic emission band ratio decreases toward the ionized gas, which suggests processing of the band carriers in the ionized region.

We consider freely decaying, anisotropic, statistically axisymmetric, Saffman turbulence in which , where is the energy spectrum and the wavenumber. We note that such turbulence possesses two statistical invariants which are related to the form of the spectral tensor at small . These are and , where the subscripts and indicate quantities parallel and perpendicular to the axis of symmetry. Since and , and being integral scales, self-similarity of the large scales (when it applies) demands and . This, in turn, requires that is constant, contrary to the popular belief that freely decaying turbulence should exhibit a ‘return to isotropy’. Numerical simulations performed in large periodic domains, with different types and levels of initial anisotropy, confirm that and are indeed invariants and that, in the fully developed state, . Somewhat surprisingly, the same simulations also show that is more or less constant in the fully developed state. Simple theoretical arguments are given which suggest that, when and are both constant, the integral scales should evolve as and , irrespective of the level of anisotropy and of the presence of helicity. These decay laws, first proposed by Saffman (Phys. Fluids, vol. 10, 1967, p. 1349), are verified by the numerical simulations.

The roles of the Coriolis force and the convection associated with the fluid motion in the formation of columnar eddies in freely decaying homogeneous rotating turbulence at a moderate Rossby number are studied by direct numerical simulation of the Navier–Stokes equations in a periodic box. The simulated field is compared with a series of artificial fields generated by switching off the nonlinear and viscous terms in the Navier–Stokes equation at given instants. The comparison shows that, without the nonlinear convection effect, the Coriolis force cannot sustain the substantial growth in the direction parallel to the rotational axis of the length scale defined on the basis of the two-point correlation of the square of the vorticity, i.e. cannot sustain the formation of the columnar eddies. The length scale characterizes well the intuitive impression from visualization of flow obeying the dynamics with or without the nonlinear effect. It is shown that the lack of substantial growth is insensitive to the scale of the eddies, the box size and viscosity, at least in the case studied here.

Near-infrared (NIR; 2.5–5 μm) low-resolution(λ/Δλ ~ 100) spectra were obtained for anumber of Galactic and extragalactic objects with the Infrared Camera (IRC) in the AKARIwarm mission. These data provide us with the first opportunity to make a systematic studyof the 3.3–3.5 μm PAH features in a galactic scale as well as within anobject. Whereas the 3.3 μm band is well resolved in most spectra, the3.5 μm band is not clearly separated from the 3.4 μmband in the IRC spectrum. The intensity ratio of the summation of the 3.4 and3.5 μm bands to the 3.3 μm band shows a tendency toincrease towards the Galactic center, although a large variation in the ratio is also seenin a local scale. A search for deuterated PAH features in the 4 μm regionis carried out in IRC NIR spectra. Emission lines originating from the ionized gastogether with the detector anomaly hamper an accurate search at certain wavelengths, butlittle convincing evidence has so far been obtained for the presence of significantfeatures in 4.2–4.7 μm. A conservative upper limit of a few percents isobtained for the integrated intensity ratio of the 4.4–4.7 μm possiblefeatures to the 3.3–3.5 μm PAH features in the spectra so farobtained.

We examine the integral properties of freely decaying homogeneous magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence subject to an imposed magnetic field B0 at low-magnetic Reynolds number. We confirm that, like conventional isotropic turbulence, the fully developed state possesses a Loitsyansky-like integral invariant, in this case I// = − ∫ r⊥2 〈 u⊥·u′⊥〉 dr, where 〈u(x) ·u(x + rc)〉 = 〈u·u′〉 is the usual two-point velocity correlation and the subscript ⊥ indicates components perpendicular to the imposed field. The conservation of I// for fully developed turbulence places a fundamental restriction on the way in which the integral scales can develop, i.e. it implies u⊥2 ℓ⊥4 ℓ// ≈ constant where u⊥, ℓ⊥ and ℓ// are integral scales. This constraint can be used to estimate the evolution of u⊥(t; B0), ℓ⊥(t; B0) and ℓ//(t; B0), and these theoretical decay laws are shown to be in good agreement with numerical simulations.

We performed mid- to far-IR observations of 20 nearby dusty elliptical galaxies with AKARI and Spitzer. We have detected PAHs and extended dust emission from many of our sample galaxies.

One-point statistics of velocity gradients and Eulerian and Lagrangian accelerations are studied by analysing the data from high-resolution direct numerical simulations (DNS) of turbulence in a periodic box, with up to 40963 grid points. The DNS consist of two series of runs; one is with kmaxη ~ 1 (Series 1) and the other is with kmaxη ~ 2 (Series 2), where kmax is the maximum wavenumber and η the Kolmogorov length scale. The maximum Taylor-microscale Reynolds number Rλ in Series 1 is about 1130, and it is about 675 in Series 2. Particular attention is paid to the possible Reynolds number (Re) dependence of the statistics. The visualization of the intense vorticity regions shows that the turbulence field at high Re consists of clusters of small intense vorticity regions, and their structure is to be distinguished from those of small eddies. The possible dependence on Re of the probability distribution functions of velocity gradients is analysed through the dependence on Rλ of the skewness and flatness factors (S and F). The DNS data suggest that the Rλ dependence of S and F of the longitudinal velocity gradients fit well with a simple power law: S ~ −0.32Rλ0.11 and F ~ 1.14Rλ0.34, in fairly good agreement with previous experimental data. They also suggest that all the fourth-order moments of velocity gradients scale with Rλ similarly to each other at Rλ > 100, in contrast to Rλ < 100. Regarding the statistics of time derivatives, the second-order time derivatives of turbulent velocities are more intermittent than the first-order ones for both the Eulerian and Lagrangian velocities, and the Lagrangian time derivatives of turbulent velocities are more intermittent than the Eulerian time derivatives, as would be expected. The flatness factor of the Lagrangian acceleration is as large as 90 at Rλ ≈ 430. The flatness factors of the Eulerian and Lagrangian accelerations increase with Rλ approximately proportional to RλαE and RλαL, respectively, where αE ≈ 0.5 and αL ≈ 1.0, while those of the second-order time derivatives of the Eulerian and Lagrangian velocities increases approximately proportional to RλβE and RλβL, respectively, where βE ≈ 1.5 and βL ≈ 3.0.

We investigate the decay of freely evolving isotropic turbulence. There are two canonical cases: $E(k \,{\to}\, 0)\,{\sim}\, Lk^2$ and $E(k \,{\to}\, 0)\,{\sim}\, Ik^4,$$L$ and $I$ being the Saffman and Loitsyansky integrals respectively. We focus on the second of these. Numerical simulations are performed in a periodic domain whose dimensions, $l_{box}$, are much larger than the integral scale of the turbulence, $l$. We find that, provided that $l_{box} \,{\gg}\, l$ and $\hbox{\textit{Re}}\,{\gg}\, 1$, the turbulence evolves to a state in which $I$ is approximately constant and Kolmogorov's classical decay law, $u^2\,{\sim}\, t^ {{- 10} / {7}}$, holds true. The approximate conservation of $I$ in fully developed turbulence implies that the long-range interactions between remote eddies, as measured by the triple correlations, are very weak. This finding seems to be at odds with the non-local nature of the Biot-Savart law.

The AKARI (formerly known as ASTRO-F) mission is the first Japanese satellite dedicated for large area surveys in the infrared (Murakami et al. 2004). AKARI was launched successfully on February 22nd 2006 (JST) from JAXA's Uchinoura Space Centre, Japan. AKARI is now orbiting around the Earth in a Sun-synchronous polar orbit at the altitude of 700 km. The 68.5 cm aperture telescope and scientific instruments are cooled to 6K by liquid Helium and mechanical coolers. The expected liquid Helium holding time is now found to be at least one year after the successful aperture lid-opening on 2006 April 13th (JST). AKARI will perform the most advanced all-sky survey in 6 mid- to far-infrared wavebands since the preceding IRAS mission over 2 decades ago. Deep imaging and spectroscopic surveys near the ecliptic poles with pointed observations are also on-going in 13 wavelength bands at 2-160 μm (see Table 1, details are given in Matsuhara et al. 2006). AKARI is a perfect complement to Spitzer in respect of its wide sky area and wavelength coverage. Two unique aspects of the pointing deep surveys with AKARI are: many imaging bands including the wavelength gap of Spitzer (8-24 μm), and the slitless spectroscopic capability (Ohyama et al. in this proceeding). Not only the All-Sky Survey but also the deep pointing surveys near the ecliptic poles over ~15 deg2 in total will be particularly well suited to construct the luminosity functions of the infrared galaxies, to evaluate their clustering nature, and also to discover rare, exotic objects at various redshifts out to z ~ 3. AKARI is also capable of detecting and measuring the spectrum and the fluctuations of the cosmic infrared background. The in-orbit sensitivity and spatial resolution of the surveys are found to be sufficient to achive the scientific goals listed above.

We study nearby X-ray-emitting dusty elliptical galaxies in mid- and far-infrared by using the Spitzer Space Telescope and AKARI, the Japanese infrared astronomical satellite.

We observed embedded super-star clusters (SSCs) in blue compact dwarf galaxies (BCDs) IIZw40 and He2-10 with N-band and Q-band imaging and spectroscopy using the Cooled Mid-Infrared Camera and Spectrometer (COMICS) on board the 8m Subaru Telescope. Our infrared images of Henize 2–10 resolve the radio knots (knots I-V; Kobulnicky & Johnson 1999) and the N- and Q-band spectra show the strong [NeII] 12.8 μm and the [SIII] 18.71 μm together with relatively weak [SIV] 10.51 μm and [ArIII] 8.99 μm as well as the distinct unidentified infrared (UIR) bands at 8.6, 11.2 and 12.7 μm. We find the typical stellar spectral type of the members in the SSCs is O9 using the CoStar model (Stasinska & Schaerer 1997) and that the ionization environment in the most deeply embedded SSC(POS/#D) is the softest among those SSCs. The UIR bands exhibit a flat distribution over the galaxy and do not show a correlation with the MIR continuum, suggesting that polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are not strongly associated with the SSCs. We also find a possible decrease in the UIR 12.7 μm/11.2 μm ratio inside the embedded SSCs, suggesting that smooth-edged large PAHs are dominant (Hony et al. 2001) there. The small UIR to continuum ratio inside the embedded SSCs also suggests that the size distribution of the carbonaceous dust is skewed to the larger ones inside the embedded SSCs. Possible destruction of smaller species by harsh radiation field in the vicinity of massive stars due to the smaller heat capacity and/or the coagulation process that have been undertaken in dense dusty embedded SSCs would explain our results consistently. From the mid-infrared spectroscopy of IIZw40, the UIR bands are detected only in the south-western border of the mid-infrared peaks, suggesting the uneven distribution of PAHs within 4×106yr (Vanzi et al. 1996) after the nuclear starburst triggered in the merging of two small original galaxies.

The 2.5-dimensional model of the turbulent field near a wall, proposed by Hatziavramidis & Hanratty (1979) and modified by Chapman & Kuhn (1981), has been used to test the subgrid models of Schumann (1973, 1975) and Moin & Kim (1982). The results are disquieting, both trends and orders of magnitude sometimes being seriously in error. It also appears that the contribution of the subgrid energy to the pseudopressure calculated in large-eddy simulations can be large, although this contribution is usually neglected. On the positive side, Leonard's model for the Leonard stress is extremely good, and Schumann's synthetic boundary condition is also found to be reliable.

These results must be taken with a grain of salt, since the tests reported in §5 show that the 2.5-dimensional model cannot reproduce important characteristics of the turbulence in the neighbourhood of y+ = 40.