was a Japanese astrophysicist.

Hayashi track The Hayashi track is a luminosity–temperature relationship obeyed by infant stars of less than in the pre-main-sequence phase (PMS phase) of stellar evolution. It is named after Japanese astrophysicist Chushiro Hayashi. On the Hertzsprung� ...

s on the

Hertzsprung–Russell diagram The Hertzsprung–Russell diagram (abbreviated as H–R diagram, HR diagram or HRD) is a scatter plot of stars showing the relationship between the stars' absolute magnitudes or luminosities and their stellar classifications or effective temp ...

are named after him.

Early life and education

Hayashi was born in

Kyoto Kyoto ( or ; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan's largest and most populous island of Honshu. , the city had a population of 1.46 million, making it t ...

and enrolled at the

Tokyo Imperial University The University of Tokyo (, abbreviated as in Japanese and UTokyo in English) is a public university, public research university in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Founded in 1877 as the nation's first modern university by the merger of several Edo peri ...

(now the UTokyo) in 1940, earning his BSc in

Physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...

after 2½ years, in 1942. He was conscripted into the navy and, after the war ended, joined the group of

Hideki Yukawa Hideki Yukawa (; ; 23 January 1907 – 8 September 1981) was a Japanese theoretical physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1949 "for his prediction of the existence of mesons on the basis of theoretical work on nuclear forces". B ...

Kyoto University , or , is a National university, national research university in Kyoto, Japan. Founded in 1897, it is one of the former Imperial Universities and the second oldest university in Japan. The university has ten undergraduate faculties, eighteen gra ...

. He was appointed a professor at Kyoto University in 1957.

Yoichiro Nambu was a Japanese-American physicist and professor at the University of Chicago. Known for his groundbreaking contributions to theoretical physics, Nambu was the originator of the theory of spontaneous symmetry breaking, a concept that revoluti ...

was Hayashi's college classmate at UTokyo.

Career

He made additions to the

Big Bang The Big Bang is a physical theory that describes how the universe expanded from an initial state of high density and temperature. Various cosmological models based on the Big Bang concept explain a broad range of phenomena, including th ...

nucleosynthesis model that built upon the work of the classic

Alpher–Bethe–Gamow paper In physical cosmology, the Alpher–Bethe–Gamow paper, or αβγ paper, was created by Ralph Alpher, then a physics PhD student, his advisor George Gamow, and Hans Bethe. The work, which would become the subject of Alpher's PhD dissertation, a ...

. Probably his most famous work was the astrophysical calculations that led to the

s of star formation, and the

Hayashi limit The Hayashi limit is a theoretical constraint upon the maximum radius of a star for a given mass. When a star is fully within hydrostatic equilibrium—a condition where the inward force of gravity is matched by the outward pressure of the gas—t ...

that puts a limit on star radius. He was also involved in the early study of

brown dwarf Brown dwarfs are substellar objects that have more mass than the biggest gas giant planets, but less than the least massive main sequence, main-sequence stars. Their mass is approximately 13 to 80 Jupiter mass, times that of Jupiter ()not big en ...

s, some of the smallest stars formed. He retired in 1984 and died from

pneumonia Pneumonia is an Inflammation, inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as Pulmonary alveolus, alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of Cough#Classification, productive or dry cough, ches ...

at a Kyoto hospital on February 28, 2010.

Awards and honours

References

External links

Kyoto Prize biography page

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hayashi, Chushiro 1920 births 2010 deaths 20th-century Japanese astronomers Japanese astrophysicists Kyoto laureates in Basic Sciences Academic staff of Kyoto University University of Tokyo alumni Kyoto University alumni Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences Deaths from pneumonia in Japan Recipients of the Order of Culture Laureates of the Imperial Prize Scientists from Kyoto