Kenichi Kinugawa

About

Professor Ken Kinugawa (born in 1964) focuses on computational investigations of thermodynamic and dynamical properties of quantum substances such as condensed hydrogen and helium, on the basis of the path integral simulation method and the quantum statistical thermodynamics.

Ken Kinugawa studied industrial chemistry at Faculty of Engineering, Kyoto University, followed by the graduate research under the supervision of Professor Koichiro Nakanishi at the same university.  In Prof. Nakanishi's lab he started to study the classical molacular dynamics (MD) method and the MD simulation of aqueous solutions of fluorinated isopropyl alcohols in 1985, and then published his first article on the hydration of these alcohols in the Journal of Chemical Physics in 1988.  He obtained the degree of Doctor of Engineering in 1994 from Kyoto University.  After five years' engagement of theoretical and experimental research of glassy materials at Government Industrial Research Institute at Osaka, he moved back to concentrate on academic researches in a  university at University of Osaka Prefecture.  He joined the research group of Professor Michael L. Klein at University of Pennsylvania in 1995 as a postdoctoral fellow employed by the University, and since then, he has engaged in the path integral molecular dynamics simulations of low-temperature condensed matter such as liquid and solid hydrogen, helium-4, and ice.  One of his noticeable contributions is on the prediction of collective excitation profile of liquid para-hydrogen, which was reported a year prior to the sophisticated neutron inelastic scattering experiment of this liquid overcoming the difficulty arising from the incoherent scattering by light hydrogen atoms.  Further, the first computational estimation of shear viscosity of normal liquid helium-4 is also counted as wee.  He has been studying at Nara Women's University since 1996.  He has received the Remarkable Invention Award from Science and Technology Agency in 1990, and hold some patents concerning glass technology in Japan and US.
 

Recently, Ken Kinugawa and his group have particular interest in the properties of glassification and low temperature properties of helium-4, and the research is in progress.