Associate Professor in Institute of Astronomy, Faculty of Science, Tohoku University, Japan
Visiting Professor 2025-2026: From February 21 to March 29, 2026.
Host Professor: Benoît Commerçon
Biography
Kengo Tomida is an associate professor at the Institute of Astronomy at Tohoku University. He previously held a postdoctoral research position at Princeton from 2012 to 2015 (before returning there in 2018 for a sabbatical), and an assistant professorship at Osaka University (2015-2020). He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Astronomy from Kyoto University (2007) and obtained his PhD in 2012 from SOKENDAI (Japan), with a thesis on magnetohydrodynamic simulations of star formation processes, under the supervision of Prof. Kohji Tomisaka.
As an astrophysicist specializing in star and planet formation, as well as magnetohydrodynamics and hydrodynamic radiation processes, Kengo Tomida’s current research focuses on using high-performance numerical simulations to study the physical mechanisms governing the birth of stars and planetary systems, combining theoretical approaches with observations from projects such as ALMA.
Collaboration with CRAL
The arrival of Kengo Tomida, associate professor at Tohoku University and international expert in computational astrophysics, represents a major opportunity for CRAL. His work on star formation and protoplanetary disks, based on advanced magnetohydrodynamic simulations, makes him a leading figure in the field. He is also the lead developer of the Athena++ code, a tool widely used in astrophysics, and contributes to observational projects such as the ALMA eDisk survey.
His research topics directly overlap with those of the CRAL’s AstroeNS team, particularly in numerical modeling and high-performance computing. The two groups already have a long-standing collaboration, marked by joint publications and exchanges of researchers (such as Pierre Marchand and Kenji-Eric Sadanari). Kengo Tomida is currently working on high-resolution simulations incorporating realistic physical processes (cosmic ray transport, self-gravity), topics that are in line with the research conducted at CRAL by doctoral students on protoplanetary disks and protostellar cores.
His visit, scheduled from mid-February to late March 2026, will enable:
- The exchange of expertise on digital techniques and physical models.
- Launch a code comparison initiative to establish standardized references, which are currently lacking in the field.
- Jointly organize the second SPiCE workshop at ENS Lyon, strengthening the laboratory’s international visibility.
- This collaboration will strengthen the scientific ties between the two teams, stimulate ongoing projects (such as the development of the Shamrock code), and consolidate CRAL’s position as a key player in computational astrophysics.
Major publications
Book
Protostars and Planets VII, ASP Conference Series, Vol. 534, Edited by Shu-ichiro Inutsuka, Yuri Aikawa, Takayuki Muto, Kengo Tomida, and Motohide Tamura, San Francisco: Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 2023
Articles
E. Nishio, K. Tomida, Y. Kudoh, and S. S. Kimura, "Formation and Early Evolution of Protoplanetary Disks under Nonuniform Cosmic-Ray Ionization", 2025, S. Takasao, T. Hosokawa, K. Tomida, and K. Iwasaki, "Connecting a Magnetized Disk to a Convective Low-mass Protostar: A Global 3D Model of Boundary Layer Accretion", 2025, K. Iwasaki and K. Tomida, "Comparative Analysis of Hall Effect Implementations in Hall Magnetohydrodynamics", 2025, S. Takasao, M. Kunitomo, T. K. Suzuki, K. Tomida, and K. Iwasaki, "Spin-down of Solar-mass Protostars in Magnetospheric Accretion Paradigm", 2025, The Astrophysical Journal, 980, 111
