The telescope to be onboard SPICA (Space Infrared Telescope for Cosmology and Astrophysics) has an aperture diameter of 2.5 m and its imaging performance is to be diffraction-limited at a wavelength of 20 μm at the operating temperature of <8 K. Because manufacturing precise autocollimating at mir- rors (ACFs) with sizes comparable to the SPICA telescope is not technically feasible, we plan to use sub-aperture stitching interferometry through ACFs for optical testing of the telescope. We have verified the applicability of the sub-aperture stitching technique to the SPICA telescope by performing stitching experiments in a vacuum at a room temperature, using the 800-mm telescope and a 300-mm ACF. We have also developed a new method to reduce uncertainties possibly caused by cryogenic and gravitational deformations of ACFs.

Early-type galaxies (ETGs) are generally dominated by old low-mass stars, which are not very productive of dust, and hot interstellar plasmas, which are very destructive of dust. Thus ETGs provide harsh environments for survival of dust. It has been found that some ETGs contain a large amount of dust, and yet its supply mechanism is not understood well. We present the result of a systematic study of dust in ETGs with the AKARI mid- and far-infrared all-sky surveys. From the AKARI result and the Ks band data obtained by ground-based telescopes, we nd that there is a global correlation between the dust mass and stellar luminosity. We also compare the AKARI all-sky survey result with the CO data to discuss origins of dust in ETGs.

We study CO2/H2O ice abundance ratios in nearby galaxies using AKARI near-infrared slit spec- troscopy. Past studies of the ices intensively examined CO2/H2O ratios mainly in our Galaxy, and found that there were considerable variations in the CO2/H2O ratios from object to object. The cause of the variations is, however, still under debate. As a result of the analysis of our sample that includes 1031 regions in 158 galaxies, the CO2/H2O ratios are in a range of 0.05-0.30. In the dataset, we nd that the CO2/H2O ratios positively correlate with the Brα/PAH 3.3 μm ratios which re ect the massive star formation activity. Furthermore, we find that the CO2/H2O ratios positively correlate with the specific star formation rates of the galaxies where the ices are detected, that re ect the evolutionary stage of a galaxy. These results suggest that the CO2/H2O ratios are enhanced in active star-forming regions and young galaxies.

We have performed systematic studies of the properties of dust in various environments of nearby galaxies with AKARI. The unique capabilities of AKARI, such as near-infrared (near-IR) spectroscopy combined with all-sky coverage in the mid- and far-IR, enable us to study processing of dust, particularly carbonaceous grains includings polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), for unbiased samples of nearby galaxies. In this paper, we first review our recent results on individual galaxies, highlighting the uniqueness of AKARI data for studies of nearby galaxies. Then we present results of our systematic studies on nearby starburst and early-type galaxies. From the former study based on the near-IR spectroscopy and mid-IR all-sky survey data, we find that the properties of PAHs change systematically from IR galaxies to ultra- luminous IR galaxies, depending on the IR luminosity of a galaxy or galaxy population. From the latter study based on the mid- and far-IR all-sky survey data, we find that there is a global correlation between the amounts of dust and old stars in early-type galaxies, giving an observational constraint on the origin of the dust.

We present our AKARI study of massive star forming regions where a large-scale cloud-cloud collision possibly contributes to massive star formation. Our targets are Spitzer bubbles, which consist of two types of bubbles, closed and broken ones; the latter is a candidate of the objects created by cloud-cloud collisions. We performed mid- and far-infrared surface photometry toward Spitzer bubbles to obtain the relationship between the total infrared luminosity, LIR, and the bubble radius, R. As a result, we nd that LIR is roughly proportional to R where  = 2:10:4. Broken bubbles tend to have larger radii than closed bubbles for the same LIR.

We present results of AKARI/IRC near-infrared (NIR) slit-spectroscopy (2.5{5.0 m, R  100) of Galactic sources, focusing on ice absorption features. We investigate the abundance of H2O and CO2 ices and other ice species (CO and XCN ices) along lines of sight towards Galactic Hii regions, massive YSOs, and infrared diuse sources. Even among those dierent kinds of astronomical objects, the abundance ratio of CO2 to H2O ices does not vary signicantly, suggesting that the pathway to CO2 ice formation driven by UV irradiation is not eective at least among the present targets.

We are creating all-sky diffuse maps from the AKARI mid-infrared survey data with the two photometric bands centered at wavelengths of 9 and 18 m. The AKARI mid-infrared diffuse maps achieve higher spatial resolution and higher sensitivity than the IRAS maps. In particular, the 9 m data are unique resources as an all-sky tracer of the emission of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). However, the original data suffer many artifacts. Thus, we have been developing correction methods. Among them, we have recently improved correction methods for the non-linearity and the reset anomaly of the detector response. These corrections successfully reduce the artifact level down to 0.1 MJy sr􀀀1 on average, which is essential for discussion on faint extended emission (e.g., the Galactic PAH emission). We have also made progress in the subtraction of the scattered light caused in the camera optics. We plan to release the improved diffuse maps to the public within a year.

We present a comparative study of CO and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) emission toward a region including the massive star-forming regions of NGC 6334 and NGC 6357. We use the NANTEN 12CO(J=1{0) data and the AKARI 9 m All-Sky diffuse map in order to evaluate the calibration accuracy of the AKARI data. We conrm that the overall CO distribution shows a good spatial correspondence with the PAH emission, and their intensities exhibit a good power-law correlation with a spatial resolution down to 4′ over the region of 10◦10◦. We also reveal poorer correlation for small scale structures between the two quantities toward NGC 6357, due to strong UV radiation from local sources. Larger scatter in the correlation toward NGC 6357 indicates higher ionization degree and/or PAH excitation than that of NGC 6334.