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Eight positions within the La Caixa INPHINIT programDeadline: January, 24th 2024
The IAA-CSIC offers 8 positions in the new call of the La Caixa INPHINIT-Incoming Doctoral Scholarship Programme: - Establishing the stages of planet formation - Computer science and small objects in our solar system - Habitable exoplanets in the Solar System Neighbourhood - Star Formation History of Galaxies in Clusters: Triggering and Quenching the Star Formation - Spatially-Resolved Star Formation Rates and Efficiency in HI Gas-Rich Disk Galaxies - Machine learning approach to the inverse light scattering problem by major airborne aerosol particles in the earth atmosphere: volcanic ash, desert dust and pollen - Habitable Worlds Quest - Unveiling the shaping of infant nova remnants (more) |
IAA-CSIC offers eleven contracts (9 postdocs, 2 engineers) in the framework of the its “Severo Ochoa 2023-2026”Deadline: June, 15th 2023
IAA-CSIC offers eleven contracts (9 postdocs, 2 engineers) in the framework of the its “Severo Ochoa 2023-2026” excellence project. The requested profiles correspond to the strategic research lines of the project, namely “Planetary systems and atmospheres, star-planet interactions” (4 contracts), “Accretion, star formation and environment as drivers of galaxy evolution and their cosmological context” (5 contracts) and “State-of-the-art instrumentation and facilities” (2 contracts). The contracts include a competitive salary and full health insurance. Selected candidates will have access to SO-IAA grants, which provide additional funds for scientific visits, attendance to advanced schools and workshops, and other training activities. IAA-CSIC is an equal opportunity institution. Applications to this program by female scientists are particularly encouraged. (more) |
INPhINIT Incoming Phd: "Astrophysics of jetted AGNs with MAGIC and CTA-LST, and implications for cosmology. "Deadline: January, 25th 2023
The doctoral fellowship programme INPhINIT ”la Caixa” is devoted to attracting talented Early-Stage Researchers of any nationality to pursue their PhD studies in the best Spanish and Portuguese research centres and units with excellence distinction. Research Project / Research Group Description VHE gamma-ray observations of blazars in last 20 years expanded the horizon of detected sources in number (from ~5 sources to ~80) distance (up to z=0.944) and class (BL Lacs, FSRQ, radio-galaxies). Many crucial questions remain open on the jet physics: processes involved in jet launching and acceleration, role of hadrons, the connection of blazars to ultra-high-energy cosmic rays, the location of the site of photon emission in different classes of sources and source states. The research project focuses on the study of AGN jet emission in VHE γ-rays together with multi-wavelength (MWL) data including polarimetry. The aim is to study jets from their broad-band spectral energy distribution (SED) at single epoch, and from the time evolution in flux, spectrum and polarization of MWL emission. This can also contribute to cosmological topics such as the study of Inter Galactic Magnetic Fields (IGMF), or evolution of the Extragalactic Background Light (EBL) through cosmic ages. The program will be hosted in the VHEGA (Very High Energy Group for Astrophysics) Group (PIs: Iván Agudo & Rubén López-Coto ; also members Dr. M. Bernardos and PhD student J. Escudero), participating to CTA, LST and MAGIC. The team has expertise on MWL blazar studies including also optical and mm polarimetry; in this field the group leads long-term programs for monitoring and Target of Opportunity observations of blazars: the POLAMI program at the IRAM 30m telescope in Sierra Nevada, and the TOP-MAPCAT program at the 2.2m optical telescope in Calar Alto (Almeria), as well as parallel programs from the 1.5m and 0.9m telescopes at the Observatory of Sierra Nevada (OSN), an IAA internal facility. Moreover, in January 2022 the IXPE satellite, first X-ray polarimeter ever, was launched, and the Group Leader is a member of the IXPE collaboration. IXPE data on blazars will be sure available along the timespan of the PhD fellowship. (more) |
INPhINIT Incoming PhD: "Angular momentum of galaxies – a high priority goal for the Square Kilometre Array"Deadline: January, 25th 2023
The doctoral fellowship programme INPhINIT ”la Caixa” is devoted to attracting talented Early-Stage Researchers of any nationality to pursue their PhD studies in the best Spanish and Portuguese research centres and units with excellence distinction. Research Project / Research Group Description AMIGA (Analysis of the interstellar Medium of Isolated GAlaxies) is an interdisciplinary team at the IAA playing a major role in the SKA project, a next generation radio telescope which will be the largest scientific infrastructure on Earth, and the largest generator of public data. The PI of this position coordinates the Spanish participation in the SKA, and her team is strongly involved in preparatory science and in developing a prototype SKA Regional Centre (SRC), an environment to provide access and resources to exploit radiointerferometric data. She has supervised a total of 48 people, including undergraduate and PhD students, postdocs, engineers, communicators and managers, and 6 PhD thesis. She has formed a group currently composed by 19 people, with diversity and equality as key values: 9 women and 10 men, maintaining parity at all levels, with members from 6 countries. Thus, AMIGA team provides an exceptional opportunity for a PhD candidate to become deeply involved in SKA, a facility that will be transformational for radio astronomy over the coming decades. The proposed project falls into the core of AMIGA science, which focuses on comparing the properties of galaxies in extreme environments, with a special emphasis on atomic gas (HI) as a tracer of interactions, in which AMIGA has a unique expertise in Spain. The AMIGA sample of highly isolated galaxies acts as a reference for how galaxies evolve in the absence of external influences. The angular momentum is a fundamental property of galaxies that may act as a hidden variable in scaling relations between optical properties and HI mass, and could potentially explain why such relations have considerable scatter. In the existing studies there are almost no isolated galaxies neither dense isolated groups. Hence an in-depth study of the angular momenta in these samples and a comparison with numerical simulations is crucially missing, and constitutes the research context of the proposed PhD work. (more) |
INPhINIT Incoming PhD: "Computer science applied to the minor bodies in the solar system"Deadline: January, 25th 2023
The doctoral fellowship programme INPhINIT ”la Caixa” is devoted to attracting talented Early-Stage Researchers of any nationality to pursue their PhD studies in the best Spanish and Portuguese research centres and units with excellence distinction. Research Project / Research Group Description Historically the study of the physical properties of minor bodies in our solar system was done doing planned ground-based and space observations.Telescopes likes Hubble, Spitzer, Wise or Herschel were used. Then, most recently, large ground-based and space-based stars and/or galaxies surveys were planned with diverse objectives but were used by the minor bodies community to study the background minor bodies. That means, the telescope was pointing to a field of view to study some galaxy, star cluster or specific star and diverse minor bodies can be identified and studied in that pointing. The first large data release of minor bodies published using this technique was the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Moving Object Catalog. The catalog lists astrometric and photometric data for moving objects observed during the Survey. The advantage of these kind of data is that there are ready to use in the databases where the survey’s team applied the pipeline to extract the data from the observations. Other current examples of this kind of catalogues are: Wise, K2, Tess, Gaia and in a near future the LSST. Another huge source of data are the ground-based observations, where again, are planned with diverse objectives and a minor body can be found in the background. We want to extract the information on these minor bodies that appears on the images that were not planned to observe these bodies. We will use all the databases of minor bodie´s observations from the last 20 years, together with the observations made by our group, and extract as much information as possible. The challenge in analyzing the data lies in the heterogeneity of the data, the different observing conditions, formats, and timing of the data. The project aims to use data analysis tools to interpret the physical properties of these minor bodies observed in such different conditions and times. The developed tools can be used in the analysis of other databases in the future. (more) |
INPhINIT Incoming PhD: "Exploring the diversity of planetary systems"Deadline: January, 25th 2023
The doctoral fellowship programme INPhINIT ”la Caixa” is devoted to attracting talented Early-Stage Researchers of any nationality to pursue their PhD studies in the best Spanish and Portuguese research centres and units with excellence distinction. Research Project / Research Group Description Stars are formed surrounded by a disk of gas and dust that progressively evolves to form a planetary system. With the advent of a new generation of telescopes and astronomical facilities, such as the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) radio interferometer, we have been able to obtain increasingly sharp images of these protoplanetary disks and discern fine details of the onset of the planet formation process. Disks with asymmetries, central cavities, gaps, bright rings, spirals, thought to be produced by forming planets, are frequently found. All this indicates that planetary formation is consubstantial with the star formation process, suggesting a large abundance of planets, comparable to the number of stars in the Universe. The continuous discoveries of new exoplanets confirm that they are very abundant in our Galaxy. One of the most surprising result has been the great diversity of exoplanets and architectures of the exoplanetary systems that are being found. This diversity should also be reflected in their progenitors, the protoplanetary disks. However, this diversity in the disks has not yet been well explored, neither from an observational nor a theoretical perspective. The PhD thesis will be devoted to explore this diversity in protoplanetary disks by studying a sample of emblematic cases, which we have already identified. The research group, led by Dr. Guillem Anglada, is formed also by Dr. Mayra Osorio, Dr. José F. Gómez, Dr. Luis F. Miranda, 1 postdoc, and several PhD and master students. We study multiple aspects of the star and planetary formation process, as well as the late phases of stellar evolution. We have expertise both in radio observations at very high angular resolution and in theoretical modeling. We have numerous international collaborators, and are involved in various international consortia in UK, Chile, Mexico, USA, Germany, India, Australia, and France, among others. (more) |
INPhINIT Incoming PhD: "Fine tuning and usage of a global network of robotic telescopes for studying impact flashes on the moon and their biological implications for advanced control systems and habitability on the moon."Deadline: January, 25th 2023
The doctoral fellowship programme INPhINIT ”la Caixa” is devoted to attracting talented Early-Stage Researchers of any nationality to pursue their PhD studies in the best Spanish and Portuguese research centres and units with excellence distinction. Research Project / Research Group Description The research project is double fold: scientific and biological/technological. On one hand, the scientific goal will be to use the worldwide network of the BOOTES robotic telescope to detect transient lunar phenomena, to characterise the size, speed, and frequency of these events. The impacts on the moon and their ejecta will threaten any life-support system built on the Moon so this analysis is very important. On the other hand, their biological implications for advanced control systems and habitability on the moon will be studied. In particular, the work will be focused on encapsulated and pressurised habitats for plants on the moon to better understand advanced control systems and their implementation in small autonomous capsules to be used as greenhouses to study future agriculture and habitability in the Moon (as a result of a collaboration with Dr. Zheng Chen, Wrexham Glyndwr University). In previous publications, scientists understood how plants are stressed due to different temperatures in different parts of the plants. In addition to that, it has to be considered that the plant also has stimulations under different light, cosmic radiation, soil interaction or gravity. That is why, if it is possible to control the stress created by a temperature divergence, it will be easier to better understand how different gravity conditions will affect the plant´s growth. (more) |
INPhINIT Incoming PhD: "Habitable exoplanets in the Solar System Neighbourhood"Deadline: January, 25th 2023
The doctoral fellowship programme INPhINIT ”la Caixa” is devoted to attracting talented Early-Stage Researchers of any nationality to pursue their PhD studies in the best Spanish and Portuguese research centres and units with excellence distinction. Research Project / Research Group Description As the technology behind instrumentation in astronomy improves, so does our ability to detect and characterize planets outside our Solar System. Indeed, just after 26 years from discovering the first exoplanet Pegasy 51-b, the field of exoplanet has experienced one of the highest growth in recent science, becoming one of the hottest topics today. Around ten years ago, the community focused on very small stars because of the great potentiality they presented for the discovery of habitable exo-Earths. Now, this has become a reality, with findings like that they numerous small planets, which implies the change of paradigm of having at least one planet orbiting almost every star in our Galaxy. This has taken us from studying the stars alone to having to understand the complete stellar system formed by the star and their planets. To do so, we now need to know with sufficient precision the parameters and internal structure of the host stars and understand the physical processes behind their variability, the formation and dynamics of planets around them, any possible interaction between planets and their stars and the evolution in time of the whole system. We can even start characterizing their atmospheres in search for signatures of life! The main objective of our project is to search for exoplanets around M-dwarf stars to try to understand how they form and evolve to the systems we detect today. In our group, we work in all possible aspects of these systems, from the general statistics and physics of the formation and evolution of exoplanets and their atmospheres to the internal structure of their stars. To this aim, our group led the construction of CARMENES, an instrument, the first of its kind worldwide, currently in operation at CAHA observatory. Our group includes people with experience in theory, observations, instrumentation and management and is internationally renowned. (more) |
INPhINIT Incoming PhD: "Radio emission from star-planet interaction"Deadline: January, 25th 2023
The doctoral fellowship programme INPhINIT ”la Caixa” is devoted to attracting talented Early-Stage Researchers of any nationality to pursue their PhD studies in the best Spanish and Portuguese research centres and units with excellence distinction. Research Project / Research Group Description This project has two main goals. First, to search for radio emission arising from starplanet interaction in nearby stars with confirmed exoplanets. The detection of starplanet radio emission would allow us to use it as an independent tracer for future searches of habitable planets. The second main goal is to test star-planet interaction scenarios via radio observations for a number of stars. We will focus on M stars, which are the most abundant type of stars in our galaxy and, due to their low mass, are ideal for searching Earth-type planets. We intend to exploit the fact that the magnetic interaction between this type of stars with planets close enough can lead to radio emission that can be detectable from Earth. This project has a strong observational component, and the successful candidate will become proficient in the use of radio interferometry techniques, including the software needed to reduce the radio data, which the main workhorse of the project. The candidate will work with radio interferometry data collected so far from state-ofthe- art interferometers, including the the Jansky Very Large Array (JVLA), the Giant Metre Wave Ratio Telescope (GMRT), the MeerKAT interferometer, the e-MERLIN, or the international LOFAR telescope. The successful candidate will become part of the CARMENES collaboration, and is expected to lead additional radio proposals from the planets that will be discovered, searching for signals of radio emission from the most promising targets to show star-planet interaction. The successful candidate will also become familiar with the physics behind the radio emission from exoplanets, and from star-planet interaction, as well as with magneto-hydrodynamic simulations to study the potential habitability of exoplanets around host stars. The overall goal of this project is to advance in our understanding of the origin of radio emission in exoplanets, tying it to the physical properties of the exoplanets and their host stars. (more) |
INPhINIT Incoming PhD: "Study of Galactic compact objects and their surroundings using Very High Energy gamma-ray telescopes"Deadline: January, 25th 2023
The doctoral fellowship programme INPhINIT ”la Caixa” is devoted to attracting talented Early-Stage Researchers of any nationality to pursue their PhD studies in the best Spanish and Portuguese research centres and units with excellence distinction. Research Project / Research Group Description Massive stars find their fate in explosions known as supernovae leaving a compact stellar remnant that can be a neutron star or a black hole. The interaction of these compact objects with the remnant of the supernova material, the surrounding medium or with each other accelerate particles known as Cosmic Rays (CRs) to ultrarrelativistic energies, emitting photons in a non-thermal spectrum in wavelengths ranging from radio up to Very High Energy (VHE) gamma rays. One of the most important questions in astroparticle physics nowadays is what is the maximum energy at which these sources can accelerate CRs, the processes they suffer and the origin of these particles. Direct detection of CRs at the Earth does not give information of their origin because they are deflected by intergalactic magnetic fields, and the only way of studying them is to observe the neutral products produced such as VHE gamma-ray photons emitted at their original sources. The observation of the highest end of the electromagnetic spectrum using VHE gamma-ray telescopes becomes therefore essential to solve this problem. Different types of sources accelerate different types of particles, we will therefore tackle this problem with VHE gamma-ray observations of Supernova Remnants, Novae or Young Stellar Clusters in Star Forming Regions to study the acceleration of protons and in Pulsars, Pulsar Wind Nebulae and Halos to study electrons and positrons. (more) |
INPhINIT Incoming PhD: "Study of the variability of trace gases in the atmosphere of Venus in 3D" to support EnVision/ESA MissionDeadline: January, 25th 2023
The doctoral fellowship programme INPhINIT ”la Caixa” is devoted to attracting talented Early-Stage Researchers of any nationality to pursue their PhD studies in the best Spanish and Portuguese research centres and units with excellence distinction. Research Project / Research Group Description Venus is in the spotlight of the public and scientific community after the selection of 3 missions: DAVINCI+ and VERITAS by NASA, and EnVision by ESA/NASA. It remains an open question how Venus and the Earth started so similar but become so different worlds. The question “Could our neighbor planet have once hosted an ocean and even sustained life?”, among others, will be synergistically addressed by the three missions. Our group at IAA-CSIC holds the co-PI ship of one of the instruments on board EnVision, the high spectral resolution spectrograph VenSpec-H, and Co-I ship of the VenSpec suite (VenSpec-U and VenSpec-M). The technological responsibility is providing the power supply modules of VenSpec-H, -U and of the Central Control Unit of the whole instrument. More specifically, VenSpec-H is designed to monitor the composition of minor species (e.g., H2O, SO2, HDO, CO) in the lower atmosphere during nigh-time and above the cloud on the day side. Large variations are expected, potentially related with geologic (i.e., volcanic) activity, or associated with vertical mixing within the cloud layer. The group has proven experience in developing photochemical models for reducing (Titan, Jupiter, and Uranus) and oxidizing (Mars and Venus) atmospheres as well as 3D simulations. In this line, a photochemical model coupled with a simplified microphysical cloud model for Venus and a General Circulation Model (GCM), developed by our collaborators, successfully reproduce the observed structure of clouds and the H2O and SO2 distribution at cloud tops. However, the origin of the observed vertical mixing ratio fluctuations is barely understood. The main goal of this project is investigating the atmosphere variability above the cloud tops with 3D model simulations to better understand the processes leading to those variations to be prepared to analyse future observations by VenSpec-H on board the ESA EnVision mission. (more) |
INPhINIT Incoming PhD: "Understanding atmospheric electricity phenomena in the new era of geostationary lightning detection: from the microphysics of lightning and corona discharge producing thunderstorms to the analysis of their climatic feedback"Deadline: January, 25th 2023
The doctoral fellowship programme INPhINIT ”la Caixa” is devoted to attracting talented Early-Stage Researchers of any nationality to pursue their PhD studies in the best Spanish and Portuguese research centres and units with excellence distinction. Research Project / Research Group Description The upcoming European effort to monitor the occurrence of atmospheric electrical discharges and fires from measurements provided by the European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) new Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) geostationary satellites (launch in late 2022) is a unique opportunity to achieve significant progress in the knowledge of the interaction between atmospheric electricity, wildfires and climate. The MTG Lightning Imager will continuously detect lightning in Europe and Africa for the first time, while other MTG satellite sensors covering from the ultraviolet range to the infrared will provide measurements of the chemical composition of the atmosphere, cloud properties and wildfire occurrence. In this project, the mesoscale-regional cloud-resolving model Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) will be used. The capacity of WRF to simulate the Earth system at a regional scale makes it highly useful for data assimilation, i.e., obtaining a detailed and high-spatial-temporal resolution description of the atmosphere from observational variables. The simulation results will then be used to find new relationships between lightning, wildfires, meteorology and lightning-produced nitrogen oxides (NOx) at a regional scale. The PhD project will be developed within the wider framework of a research project funded by the Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI). The atmospheric electricity group at the IAA-CSIC has more than 14 years of research experience, many international collaborations and participates in Earth observation missions such as the Atmosphere Space Interaction Monitor (ASIM) launched in 2018. Currently, 7 members (including 3 PhD students) form the group with funding from regional, national (AEI) and European public agencies (ESF, H2020, ERC-Consolidator Grant), and private institutions (1 Postdoc from La Caixa Foundation). The group publishes in top journals including Nature Geoscience and Nature Communications. (more) |
INPhINIT Incoming PhD: "Computer science and small objects in our solar system"Deadline: January, 27th 2022
Historically the study of the physical properties of minor bodies in our solar system was done doing planned ground-based observations. In the last 20 years the space telescope also was used to this kind of studies. Telescopes likes Hubble, Spitzer, Wise or Herschel were used. Then, most recently, large ground-based and space-based stars and/or galaxies surveys were planned with diverse objectives but were used by the minor bodies community to study the background minor bodies. That means, the telescope was pointing to a field of view to study some galaxy, star cluster or specific star and diverse minor bodies can be identified and studied in that pointing. The first large data release of minor bodies published using this technique was the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Moving Object Catalog. The catalog lists astrometric and photometric data for moving objects observed during the Survey. The advantage of these kind of data is that there are ready to use in the databases where the survey’s team applied the pipeline to extract the data from the observations. Other current examples of this kind of catalogues are: Wise, Kepler 2, Tess and in a near future the LSST. Another huge source of data are the ground-based observations, where again, are planned with diverse objectives and a minor body can be found in the background. We want to extract the information on these minor bodies that appears on the images that were not planned to observe these bodies. Our group has extensive experience in ground-based observations on minor bodies, asteroids and trans-neptunian bodies (TNOs). We have expertise on determining rotational periods, shapes and pole direction. With a large time-spam in the observation we can determine the 3D shape of the body and also infer if they have rings or albedo variations on the surface. We participated in the discovery of the rings of the centaur Chariklo and TNO Haumea. Using observations with large time spam, on particular minor bodies, our group were able to identify the 3D shape of TNOs like Varuna, analyze the presence of rings around centaurs, create a database of absolute magnitudes that can be converted to diameters, search for new unidentified objects, and the study of many more physical properties. (more) |
INPhINIT Incoming PhD: "Astrophysics of jetted AGNs with MAGIC and CTA-LST, and implications for cosmology"Deadline: January, 27th 2022
VHE gamma-ray observations of blazars in last 20 years expanded the horizon of detected sources in number (from ~5 sources to ~80) distance (up to z=0.944) and class (BL Lacs, FSRQ, radio-galaxies). Many crucial questions remain open on the jet physics: processes involved in jet launching and acceleration, role of hadrons, the connection of blazars to ultra-high-energy cosmic rays, the location of the site of photon emission in different classes of sources and source states. The research project focuses on the study of AGN jet emission in VHE γ-rays together with multi-wavelength (MWL) data including polarimetry. The aim is to study jets from their broad-band spectral energy distribution (SED) at single epoch, and from the time evolution in flux, spectrum and polarization of MWL emission. This can also contribute to cosmological topics such as the study of Inter Galactic Magnetic Fields (IGMF), or evolution of the Extragalactic Background Light (EBL) through cosmic ages. The program will be hosted in the VHEGA (Very High Energy Group for Astrophysics) Group (PI: Ivan Agudo, ; also members Dr. G. Bonnoli and PhD student J. Escudero), participating to CTA, LST and MAGIC. The team has expertise on MWL blazar studies including also optical and mm polarimetry; in this field the group leads long-term programs for monitoring and Target of Opportunity observations of blazars: the POLAMI program at the IRAM 30m telescope in Sierra Nevada, and the TOP-MAPCAT program at the 2.2m optical telescope in Calar Alto (Almeria), as well as parallel programs from the 1.5m and 0.9m telescopes at the Observatory of Sierra Nevada (OSN), an IAA internal facility. Moreover, in January 2022 the IXPE satellite, first X-ray polarimeter ever, will be launched, and the Group Leader is a member of the IXPE collaboration. IXPE data on blazars will be sure available along the timespan of the PhD fellowship. These data together with public data from Swift and Fermi will complement our VHE blazar data in uniquely constraining sets. (more) |
INPhINIT Incoming PhD: "Unveiling exoplanets atmospheres with the James Webb Space Telescope"Deadline: January, 27th 2022
The large number of exoplanets known to date (>4500) has showed us the rich diversity of both planets and planetary systems. The enormous jump, from knowing just our own Solar System to more than three thousand other systems discovered in only ~25 years, opened a new field of research and posed a major challenge: learning how planets form and how they evolve. To answer those questions it is pivotal to fully characterise them in a systematic way. A key part of such a characterisation process is the study of their atmospheres. Planetary atmospheres hold themselves compositional signatures left by their formation and migration histories, which makes them as cipher keys to understand planetary formation processes. In the past decade, important progress in the exo-atmospheric composition, temperature structure has been made, both from space (with the Spitzer Space telescope and the Hubble Space Telescope) and by using large ground-based telescopes. However, the next major step forward is expected to come from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) observations, to be launched very soon at the end of 2021. JWST will provide a major advantage: its high resolution, its near- and mid-infrared spectrometers, and its spectra not being contaminated by our atmosphere, are expected to provide unique data which will advance significantly our knowledge on exo-atmospheres. In particular the knowledge on their temperature structure, composition, clouds, and dynamics. The work proposed for this PhD position is set within this framework. The main aim is to analyse JWST infrared and near-infrared data of the targeted exoplanets to derive their atmospheric properties (temperature, composition, winds, clouds, hazes, etc.). Among the targets we find a large variety, from hot gas giants to Neptunes, mini-Neptunes, super-Earth’s and terrestrial planets (https://www.stsci.edu/jwst/science-execution/approved-programs). Preference will be given to the targets of the Early Release Science (ERS) program. In order to carry out those tasks, several groups have already developed tools, which are openly available, e.g., Taurex3, Chimera, Nemesis, ARCIS, to cite a few. Thus, one major goal of this work will be to retrieve the atmospheric parameters (mainly temperature and composition) of selected targets. In addition to that, we also plan to make a unique contribution: all of the tools publicly available assume that the atmospheric infrared emission of exoplanets occurs under the conditions of Local Thermodynamics Equilibrium (or LTE). It is well known, though, that non-LTE is very important in the study of planetary atmospheres in our Solar System. Hence, we plan to develop a non-LTE general model capable of modelling the non-LTE infra-red emission of the most abundant molecules (H2O, CH4, CO and CO2) so far detected in exo-atmospheres, including hot-Jupiters, Neptunes, sub-Neptunes and Super-Earths. Once developed, we will apply it to analyse JWST data, in particular those of the hot-Jupiter HD 189733 b, for which there is controversy about whether the CH4 IR emission is LTE or not. The Terrestrial-Planetary atmosphere group (GAPT) at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía-CSIC, a Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence, has a long-recognised experience in the analysis of non-LTE infrared emission of planetary atmosphere taken by many satellite-borne spectrometers (http://gapt.iaa.es). (more) |
INPhINIT Incoming PhD: "MACHINE LEARNING APPROACH TO THE INVERSE LIGHT SCATTERING PROBLEM BY MAJOR AIRBORNE AEROSOL PARTICLES IN THE EARTH ATMOSPHERE: VOLCANIC ASH, DESERT DUST AND POLLEN"Deadline: January, 27th 2022
The measurement of the concentrations of different types of aerosols in the Earth’s atmosphere is crucial for modeling radiative transfer, advance allergy alerts or manage aviation circulation. This is a kind of the inverse light scattering problem, that has been approached by Machine Learning only for some very simple cases of non-spherical particles, such as spheroids. Non-spherical particles have been widely proved to give radically different results in radiative transfer in different astrophysical scenarios, such as planetary atmospheres and cometary comae. Light scattering by this kind of particles can be modeled by several approximations, namely T-matrix for spheroids, Superposition Theorem for aggregates of spheres, Discrete-Dipole Approximation and Finite Difference Time Domain for any kind of grains. But computational limitations make it impossible to simulate light scattering by realistic irregular particles. Scattering matrices by such grains must be obtained experimentally. The aim of this project is to develop a Machine Learning light scattering inverse problem solver that accounts for the concentration of volcanic ash, desert dust and pollen in an area of the Earth’s atmosphere based on local ground measurements. A second objective is the concept design of an apparatus that could perform such measurements and calculate the inversion. The development and patent of such apparatus would be beyond the scope of this thesis project. The thesis project would be developed within the Light Scattering Group of the Department of Solar System at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía – CSIC (Spain), where we conduct a national project entitled “Laboratory Experiments, Observations and modeling of cometary Dust: A new Strategy (LEONIDAS)”. Studies extend from cometary tails, including exploitation of OSIRIS and Giada-Rosetta data and participation in upcoming missions such as Comet Interceptor to circumstellar disks. The student will also benefit from our collaborations in Finland and UK. Our group operates the world- class facility COsmic DUst LABoratory (CODULAB), and instrument that produces light scattering matrices by non-spherical particles, which has produced measurements of light scattering by volcanic ash, desert dust and pollen. (more) |
INPhINIT Incoming PhD: "Fine tuning and usage of a global network of robotic telescopes for studying impact flashes on the moon and their biological implications for advanced control systems and habitability on the moon"Deadline: January, 27th 2022
The research project is double fold: scientific and biological/technological. On one hand, the scientific goal will be to use the worldwide network of the BOOTES robotic telescopes to detect transient lunar phenomena, to characterise the size, speed, and frequency of these events. The impacts on the moon and their ejecta will threaten any life-support system built on the Moon so this analysis is very important. On the other hand, their biological implications for advanced control systems and habitability on the moon will be studied. In particular, the work will be focused on encapsulated and pressurised habitats for plants on the moon to better understand advanced control systems and their implementation in small autonomous capsules to be used as greenhouses to study future agriculture and habitability in the Moon (as a result of a collaboration with Dr. Zheng Chen, Wrexham Glyndwr University). In previous publications, scientists understood how plants are stressed due to different temperatures in different parts of the plants. In addition to that, it has to be considered that the plant also has stimulations under different light, cosmic radiation, soil interaction or gravity. That is why, if it is possible to control the stress created by a temperature divergence, it will be easier to better understand how different gravity conditions will affect the plant ́s growth. (more) |
INPhINIT Incoming PhD: "RADIATIVE TRANSFER BY NON-SPHERICAL PARTICLES: APPLICATION TO PROTOPLANETARY DISKS AND PLANETARY ATMOSPHERES"Deadline: January, 27th 2022
High resolution observations of protoplanetary disks by ALMA have brought up the possibility of modeling disks in detail. For instance, the maximum size of the particles within the disk and the opacity as a function of the wavelength can be derived if a model for the grains is assumed. Historically, only spherical grains have been used in these models, just because of simplicity: the scattering matrix and the thermal emission can be easily, analytically derived. Just a few new results have been obtained by using spheroids, which are significantly different from those referred to spheres. Furthermore, to our knowledge, all radiative transfer model for disks available (Polaris, SKIRT and MCFOST) only accept spherical particles as radio emitters and scatterers. Non-spherical particles have been widely proved to give radically different results in radiative transfer in different astrophysical scenarios, such as planetary atmospheres and cometary comae. The aim of this project is to definitely demonstrate the need for non-spherical grains in modeling protoplanetary disks, and the implementation or adaptation of a radiative transfer model code that include realistic irregular particles. A second objective is the extension of such model to the study of aerosols in atmospheres. The thesis project will be developed within the Light Scattering Group of the Department of Solar System at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía – CSIC (Spain), where we conduct a national project entitled “Laboratory Experiments, Observations and modeling of cometary Dust: A new Strategy (LEONIDAS)”. Studies extend from cometary tails, including exploitation of OSIRIS and Giada-Rosetta data and participation in upcoming missions such as Comet Interceptor to circumstellar disks. The student will also benefit from our collaborations in Mexico and Belgium. Our group operates the world-class facility COsmic DUst LABoratory (CODULAB), and instrument that produces light scattering matrices by non-spherical particles. Existing and future measurements by CODULAB could now be applied to a new field of: disks. The use of these matrices in a radiative transfer model for disks and the instant transfer of the vast body of knowledge on light scattering by non-spherical particles to the study of protoplanetary disks would revolutionize that field. (more) |
INPhINIT Incoming PhD: "Exploring the outskirts of the Solar System"Deadline: January, 27th 2022
Our solar system beyond Neptune is poorly known. We know about the existence of Pluto, a few other dwarf planets and a myriad of smaller objects collectively known as “Transneptunian Objects”. But because of limitations in the current reach of our largest telescopes we do not know exactly how many of them there are and how far they reach. We do not even know if there is still an additional planet in the solar system to be found or even more than just one planet... But by studying the currently known TNOs and using new techniques we may be able to get some answers to the above questions. In this project we intend to take advantage of high accuracy observations that we have done in our group and also in the development of techniques that may be able to shed light on those questions. (more) |
INPhINIT Incoming PhD: "Towards giant optical telescopes through innovate ideas and technology"Deadline: January, 27th 2022
We are testing different prototypes of a new concept that we call MARCOT in which we integrate “small” telescopes to form a much larger one but with different techniques to the ones used so far to interferometrically link the individual telescopes. Our techniques take advantage of new concepts and new technologies in electronics, optoelectronics and photonic science that are now available. We are currently assessing the feasibility and cost of this approach, which can yield to costs reductions of more than a factor 10 compared to conventional large telescopes. Our idea is to build giant telescopes for several specific scientific needs in astronomy and in optical communications, capable of delivering state of the art results. Integrating the very numerous units requires solving some engineering challenges related to huge and fast data processing and with the control of a large number of systems. The research group is integrated by scientists and engineers working at Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía and at Calar Alto observatory with an important background in instrument development for telescopes. (more) |
INPhINIT Incoming PhD: "Imaging supermassive black holes with the Event Horizon Telescope"Deadline: January, 27th 2022
Our research group at IAA is focused on the study of black hole accretion and relativistic jet formation through very long baseline interferometric observations (VLBI) with mm-wave arrays, such as the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), and orbiting antennas, such as the space VLBI mission RadioAstron. In particular our research group is playing a key role in the scientific exploitation of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT). Dr. Gómez, the group leader, is a member of the EHT Science Council and one of the three coordinators of the EHT Imaging Working Group (WG), together with Kazu Akiyama (MIT) and Katherine Bouman (CalTech). The EHT Imaging WG comprises more than 100 researchers worldwide and is responsible for producing all the images obtained by the EHT. Gómez is also the PI of the RadioAstron Key Science Program to study jet formation in AGN jets. Dr. Zhao is one of the two leaders of the SMILI Imaging Team (one of the four Teams within the Imaging WG responsible to produce the EHT images), and one of the two coordinators for the Scattering WG. Dr. Lico is the Secretary of the EHT Management Team, and participates actively in multiple WGs, as well other team members postdocs Ilje Cho and Thalia Traianou, and PhD students Antonio Fuentes and Teresa Toscano. Our research group has already become one of the most relevant in the EHT, and is playing a key role in the analysis of the EHT observations of SgrA*, the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, for which there are big expectations from the entire scientific community regarding the EHT results to be published soon. The PhD student will greatly benefit from access to the EHT data, the only astronomical infrastructure capable of actually imaging supermassive black holes at event-horizon-scales, and the training potential of a group with four postdocs, plus participation in an international collaboration, the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration, with more than 300 members that comprises most of the worldwide expertise in black hole physics, accretion onto black holes, jet formation, and VLBI imaging in its most challenging configurations. (more) |
NEW OPENING FOR A SEVERO OCHOA PhD POSITION: Constraining the populations of exoplanets that interact with their M dwarf hosts: indicators in the blue, optical and near-infrared and their relation to radio observations.Deadline: November, 11th 2021
Supervisor: Pedro Amado (pja@iaa.csic.es) IAA-CSIC offers a predoc contract in the framework of the Project “Severo Ochoa”. Candidates are expected to carry out their activity in the field of stellar physics and exoplanets. Rocky planets in orbit around nearby late-type M-dwarfs are very promising targets to be studied with the new generation of telescopes with spectroscopic capabilities, such as the James Webb Space Telescope, from space, or with HIRES on the ELT, from the ground, notably to search for bio-signatures. Furthermore, thanks to their small sizes and low luminosities, M dwarfs allow for easier detection of these terrestrial-type planets inside their habitable zone with both radial velocity (e.g. with CARMENES) and photometric measurements (from NASA’s TESS). Both techniques are complementary when it comes to understanding the real nature of a given planet. This is the case of super-Earths, a type of planet conceptually unknown because we do not have them in our Solar System. Observationally, their current population shows a number of intriguing features. One of them is that the less massive super-Earths (M < 4-5 MꚚ) tend to have small radii yielding high densities, in line with a rocky composition (rocky planets, with thin secondary atmospheres). Observations tend to confirm that these planets cannot have masses larger than ~10 MꚚ, in agreement with the results from population models. At higher masses, the fraction of objects with larger radii, above a “radius gap” at ~2 RꚚ, becomes more significant, showing that they can retain a significant envelope (sub-Neptunes and “water” worlds). Interestingly, another feature is that most multiple systems containing a super-earth only have one planet detected in transit, pointing towards a significant misalignment between the planets' orbits, which might be an indication for some type of interaction at work in the system. Naturally, the question rises if star-planet interaction (SPI) is at work to build these particularities in the super-Earth population. Theoretically, according to Ahuir et al. (2021), three populations of star-planet systems emerge from the combined action of magnetic and tidal interactions: i) the “steady” population, with planets undergoing negligible migration being too further out from the star (large orbital periods, Porb, although it also depends on the rotation rate of the star, Prot), ii) the “young migrators” population, with planets migrating very close to their stars (strong interactions) during their pre-main sequence phase. They can eventually be engulfed or migrate to the steady population, and iii) the “old migrators” population with planets whose migration is highly dependent on the physical parameters of the system. We propose a formative programme for a PhD student based on the investigation of CARMENES planetary systems, exploiting CARMENES data from its on-going Legacy-Plus project, to work on the precise characterisation of the parameters and dynamics of systems containing close-in super-Earths of nearby M dwarfs whose architecture and populations might have been sculpted by its interaction with the star. The results from this study will have the objective of testing the results of the SPI models and those from the radio SPI project also at IAA, eventually, understanding the population and observed distributions in the radius-mass and Prot-Porb planes of the CARMENES low-mass planetary systems. (more) |
NEW OPENING FOR A SEVERO OCHOA PHD POSITION: Remote visualization of 3D Big Data for SKA precursors and SKA Regional Centres (SCRs)Deadline: November, 11th 2021
IAA-CSIC offers a PhD contract within the framework of the Project “Severo Ochoa”. Candidates are expected to carry out their activity in the field of visualization of Big Data in radio astronomy. Supervisors: Lourdes Verdes-Montenegro and Julián Garrido (lourdes@iaa.es, jgarrido@iaa.es). The candidate will join the team leading the development of a SKA Regional Centre (SRC) Prototype fully engaged with Open Science principles at the IAA-CSIC (Granada). The team coordinates the Spanish participation in the SKA. The IAA-CSIC is a leading research institution in Astronomy and Astrophysics awarded with the Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence Accreditation, in recognition of its cut-ting-edge research, high competitiveness, ambitious strategic plans, high-quality production, and a great ability to attract talent. Equal Opportunities: CSIC is a public research organisation in which the right to equality and gender non-discrimination is preserved, while promoting the condi-tions to real and effective equality of the individuals. Everyone is encouraged to apply. The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project is an international effort to build the largest scientific infrastructure on Earth: a radio telescope with the potential to make revolutionary contributions to Astrophysics, Astrobiology, and Fundamental Phys-ics. Considered the Big Data machine of the 21st Century, the SKA Observatory will deliver 600PB/yr to worldwide distributed data centres: the SKA Regional Cen-tres. They will interoperate in an international network to provide the computing, storage and software platform where the SKA data will be scientifically analysed. SKA precursors MeerKAT and ASKAP are anticipating the new Data science chal-lenges that SKA will bring to the community. This PhD aims to perform new research on visualization of multidimensional Big Data as a preparation for SKA, minimizing computational requirements. This is key to provide scientific insight in e.g. the analysis of large/complex structures, while inspecting the quality of the data. The visualization should follow Open Sci-ence standards and protocols, a challenge not approached yet. Our testbed will be the scientific analysis at the SRC prototype of data from MeerKAT (including PI time for the study of compact groups of galaxies) and participation in the ASKAP Walla-by Large Programme, among others. Separation of ubiquitous faint atomic gas (HI) components at unprecedented resolutions, and their comparison with multiwave-length data bring new challenges in the extraction of scientific knowledge. This challenge is just starting since, as we approach the large size of the data that SKA will deliver (2TB-110TB/data product), the way we do science will necesarily change. This change will happen at the SRCs, where innovation in a number of ar-eas in which solutions do not exist yet are required and visualisation is a key aspect. (more) |
NEW OPENING FOR A SEVERO OCHOA PHD POSITION: Galaxy Evolution and Cosmology. Multiface outflows in LINERs connecting supermassive black holes and their host galaxiesDeadline: November, 11th 2021
Supervisor: Isabel Márquez (isabel@iaa.es) IAA-CSIC offers a predoc contract in the framework of the Project “Severo Ochoa”. Candidates are expected to carry out their activity in the field of galaxy evolution and cosmology. The connection between SMBH and their host galaxies is an active field with implications in galaxy evolution. The galactic physical state, including eventual interactions with neighbors, may have an influence on AGN fueling, and hence on the growth of black holes. Conversely, outflows, produced by Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs) and intense episodes of star-formation (SF), may play a crucial role in regulating (feedback) the stellar mass and SMBH mass growth. In the last decade, the different gas phases of outflows have been widely studied, mostly via observations of long-slit spectroscopy and Integral Field Spectroscopy (IFS). Works aimed to study outflows and feedback in local starbursts and luminous AGNs (e.g. Seyferts galaxies) clearly demonstrate the power of the 3D IFS in these studies. In our group we focus on a special type of low-luminosity AGNs, LINERS (Low Ionization Nuclear Emission-line Regions, Heckman 1980), with a multiwavelength perspective, from X-rays to radio frequencies. LINERs may represent the most numerous type of AGNs in the local Universe. Since they do not generally harbor important SF activity, the interpretation is easier as starbursts provide competing outflow driving mechanisms. Except for individual discoveries, the only systematic studies based on optical long-slit spectroscopy are those by our group. Among the explored LINER population (30 sources), multi-phase outflows seem to be common (60%) in type-1 LINERs. Most of these outflows, spectroscopically identified, show in their HST Hα image a large-scale biconical or bubble-like shape along with evident spatially resolved sub-structures as gas clumps of sizes from 20 to 70 pc. In our team we are using proprietary data from MEGARA together with those from MEGADES, to make a 3D description of multiphase outflows in LINERs, to spatially map and disentangle the gas ionization state and the kinematics of the ionized gas and stellar content. Since this study covers a handful of objects, we are producing an atlas of LINER candidate to host extended ionized-gas emission with high resolution, narrow-band Hα imaging from proprietary ALFOSC@NOT and archival HST, which will virtually double current samples; outflow candidates will be target of 3D spectroscopy to be gathered in the future. Both approaches constitute the core of the a PhD thesis in our group, to be defended in 2022. (more) |
IT Expert ContractDeadline: October, 31st 2021
IAA-CSIC offers a graduate contract in the framework of the Project “Severo Ochoa”. Candidates are expected to carry out their activity in the field of astronomical software support. (more) |
IT Expert ContractDeadline: October, 31st 2021
IAA-CSIC offers a graduate contract in the framework of the Project “Severo Ochoa”. Candidates are expected to carry out their activity in the field bellow. (more) |
Characterization of exo-atmospheres with high resolution spectroscopyDeadline: July, 28th 2021
IAA-CSIC offers a postdoc contract in the framework of the Project “Severo Ochoa”. Candidates are expected to carry out their activity in the field of characterization of the atmospheres of exoplanets by using high resolution spectroscopy, e.g. with data from instruments such as CARMENES, CRIRES+ or EXPRESSO. Work is expected to be focussed on detection of atoms and molecules, characterize the thermal structure and the upper atmospheres of planets undergoing hydrodynamic scape. Tasks: - Analysis of high-resolution observations of transiting planets in the visible and near infrared. Search for atoms and molecules in the atmospheres of the planets by using the cross-correlation technique. - Characterization of the upper atmospheres and the escape of gas giant planets from the analysis of He triplet absorption spectra. This includes developing and running of hydrodynamical models, radiative transfer and physical interpretation of the spectra. (more) |
Mechanical Engineer PositionDeadline: June, 21st 2021
IAA-CSIC offers an engineer contract in the framework of the Project “Severo Ochoa”. Candidates are expected to carry out their activity in the technological projects developed in the UDIT (Unidad de Desarrollo Instrumental y Tecnológico) at IAA-CSIC for ground-based and space instrumentation. (more) |
NEW OPENING FOR A SEVERO OCHOA POSTDOC POSITION: "Composition of exoplanetary atmospheres: modelling and observations"Deadline: April, 28th 2021
IAA-CSIC offers a postdoctoral contract in the framework of the Project “Severo Ochoa” which comprises a strategic research line devoted to study the physico-chemical conditions that determine the neutral and ionospheric composition of exoplanetary atmospheres. This topic also encompasses radiative transfer calculations to obtain synthetic spectra for planning observations or to retrieve information from archival data. Candidates are expected to carry out their activity in both of the research lines stated above. (more) |
INPhINIT Incoming PhD: "Solar influences on climate via the stratospheric pathway"Deadline: February, 4th 2021
Together with volcanic activity, solar variability is an important source of naturally forced variability of the Earth's climate. There is growing evidence that this influence is not restricted to the variable solar energy input at surface level but other aspects of solar variability could also affect climate via modulations of the stratospheric ozone layer. These are solar ultraviolet irradiance variations and energetic particle precipitation, recently included as input to climate model simulations in support of upcoming assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Ongoing research is focused around the following key questions: • What is the observed fingerprint of solar ultraviolet irradiance variability and energetic particle precipitation in atmospheric composition and dynamical parameters? • What are the mechanisms for solar signal transfer from the stratosphere to the surface? • How much do radiative and particle solar forcings change with time from daily to secular timescales? • What are the requisites for climate models to accurately describe solar forcing impacts? The Terrestrial-Planetary atmosphere group (GAPT) at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía - CSIC, Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence, has a long recognized trajectory in this field, which is reflected in the leadership role in international projects such as SOLARIS-HEPPA of SPARC. To answer these questions, we analyze satellite observations of atmospheric composition and temperature, as well as climate model simulations of different complexity. Coordinated model experiments and model validation studies with help of observational data are thereby of particular importance. (more) |
INPhINIT Incoming PhD: "Imaging supermassive black holes with the Event Horizon Telescope"Deadline: February, 4th 2021
Our research group at IAA is focused on the study of black hole accretion and relativistic jet formation through very long baseline interferometric observations (VLBI) with mm-wave arrays, such as the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), and orbiting antennas, such as the space VLBI mission RadioAstron. In particular our research group is playing a key role in the scientific exploitation of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT). Dr. Gómez, the group leader, is one of the three coordinators of the EHT Imaging Working Group (WG), together with Kazu Akiyama (MIT) and Katherine Bouman (CalTech). The EHT Imaging WG comprises more than 100 researchers worldwide and is responsible for producing all the images obtained by the EHT. Gómez is also the PI of the RadioAstron Key Science Program to study jet formation in AGN jets. Dr. Zhao is one of the two leaders of the SMILI Imaging Team (one of the four Teams within the Imaging WG responsible to produce the EHT images), and one of the two coordinators for the Scattering WG. Dr. Lico is the Secretary of the EHT Management Team, and participates actively in multiple WGs, as well as PhD student Mr. Fuentes. Two more postdocs will join the group in 2021. Our research group has already become one of the most relevant in the EHT, and is playing a key role in the analysis of the EHT observations of SgrA*, the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, for which there are big expectations from the entire scientific community. The PhD student will greatly benefit from access to the only astronomical infrastructure capable of actually imaging the accretion onto SMBHs, and the training potential of a group with four postdocs, plus participation in an international collaboration, the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration, with more than 300 members that comprises most of the worldwide expertise in black hole physics, accretion onto black holes, jet formation, and VLBI imaging in its most challenging configurations. (more) |
INPhINIT Incoming PhD: "The role of angular momentum in galaxy evolution: A study of neutral gas in isolated galaxies with Square Kilometre Array (SKA) pathfinders"Deadline: February, 4th 2021
The interdisciplinary team AMIGA (Analysis of the interstellar Medium of Isolated Galaxies, Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía - CSIC) plays a major role in the SKA international project, a next generation radio telescope which will be the largest scientific infrastructure on Earth, generating data at a rate comparable to the entire present day internet bandwidth. The PI of this position coordinates the Spanish participation in the SKA, with her team strongly involved in preparatory science and in developing a Prototype SKA Regional Centre (SRC), in order to produce first class science with SKA and its precursors. She has mentored a total of 6 PhD theses, 19 postdocs and 7 other staff. Thus, this project provides a unique opportunity for a PhD candidate to become deeply involved in SKA, that will be the world’s leading radio astronomy observatory capable of delivering Nobel-class scientific outcomes over the coming decades. The proposed project falls into the core of AMIGA science, which focuses on comparing the properties of galaxies in extreme environments, with a special emphasis on atomic gas (HI) as a tracer of interactions, in which AMIGA has a unique expertise in Spain, well recognized at international level. The main AMIGA sample consists of about 700 highly isolated galaxies in the nearby Universe, acting as a reference for how galaxies evolve in the absence of external influences. A fundamental, but little studied, property in regulating the gas content and star formation in galaxies is their angular momentum (e.g. Obreschkow+2016, Lutz+ 2018). In the existing studies there are almost no isolated galaxies by the strict AMIGA criteria, while they are expected to show significantly different properties from galaxies in any other environment, given their little chances along their history to interchange angular momentum with external companions. This in-depth study is hence crucially missing, and constitutes the research context of the proposed PhD work. (more) |
INPhINIT Incoming PhD: "LABORATORY STUDIES OF LIGHT SCATTERING BY DUST PARTICLES: REVEALING THE PARTICLE SIZE DISTRIBUTION, STRUCTURE AND COMPOSITION OF CIRCUMSTELLAR DUST"Deadline: February, 4th 2021
Gas and dust disks around protostars are the precursors of planetary systems. Several mechanisms have been proposed to explain grain growth from μm-sized dust to pebbles and planetesimals, leading to transitional disks and planetary systems with debris disks. These theories need now to be confirmed by observations combined with laboratory measurements of light scattering by dust particles. The distribution of μm-sized grains in protoplanetary disk envelopes and in optically thin debris disks can be traced by optical and near-IR observations of scattered starlight. The angular dependence of the intensity (the phase function) and of the degree of linear polarization (DLP) of scattered light carry information about grain size, structure and composition. Large grains produce a narrow peak in forward scattering, but detecting it is difficult. At intermediate angles, the phase function also depends on grain composition and structure, implying that spherical shape, which shows a unique phase function, is a poor assumption. The phase function of the dust rings surrounding Fomalhaut and HR4796A increases with angle at side- and back-scattering, suggesting particles as large as 100 μm. Compact spherical particles of that size are however incompatible with the observed DLP. This suggests large fluffy aggregates made of μm-sized monomers. However, numerical and experimental simulations still fail at delivering the complete picture. The number of such challenging cases is growing, as high-contrast imaging polarimeters (e.g. VLT/SPHERE, Gemini/GPI) have delivered dozens of high-quality images in the past 5 years, and upcoming observatories (JWST, WFIRST, ELT) will continue to provide such data. In order to maximize the scientific return from these multi-wavelength photopolarimetric observations, and to feed models with physical parameters constraining planet formation theories, new laboratory measurements of the phase function and DLP of representative dust analogues are crucial. (more) |
INPhINIT Incoming PhD: "Space-borne solar magnetic field measurements"Deadline: February, 4th 2021
The Solar Physics Group (SPG) of the Solar System Department of the IAA-CSIC is a leading team in the field of solar physics. The SPG participates in the development and construction of space- and balloon-borne solar instrumentation for the Solar Orbiter, Lagrange and Sunrise missions, besides of carrying out state-of-the-art theoretical and observational research on solar magnetism. SPG leads the Spanish Space Solar Physics Consortium (S3PC), which includes four more institutes (INTA, IDR-UPM, UV, and IAC). After having developed IMaX (Imaging Magnetograph eXperiment) for the Sunrise I and II mission flights and co-led (with MPS, Göttingen) the development of SO/PHI (Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager) for the ESA’s Solar Orbiter mission, S3PC is building TuMag (Tunable Magnetograph) and co-leading the development of SCIP (Sunrise Chromospheric Infrared Polarimeter) for the Sunrise III mission flight. Moreover, it is involved in the pre-development phase of PMI (Polarimetric and Magnetic Imager) for the ESA’s Lagrange mission, InFact (Inversion Factory), an electronic inverter of the radiative transfer equation for the American Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope, and participates in the first development phases of three tunable band imagers for the European Solar Telescope. SO/PHI was successfully launched aboard Solar Orbiter in February 2020 and it is now in its cruise phase to the Sun after a successful commissioning. SO/PHI will be the first-ever instrument to provide measurements of solar magnetic fields at different angular spacings from Earth and very close to the Sun. SO/PHI, therefore, opens up a window of opportunity for unique science when the cruise phase ends in November 2021. At the same time, Sunrise III fight is scheduled for the summer of 2022. Sunrise is the first observatory that will measure surface magnetic fields with polarimeters at the ultraviolet, visible and infrared wavelengths simultaneously and with unprecedented spatial resolutions. (more) |
INPhINIT Incoming PhD: "The closest habitable exoplanets to Earth"Deadline: February, 4th 2021
We study planetary systems and their stars. In the last years, the community has focused on very small stars because of the great interest they present for the discovery of habitable exo-Earths. Therefore, we work in all possible aspects of these systems, from the general statistics and physics of the formation and evolution of exoplanets and their atmospheres to the internal structure of their stars. To this aim, our group has led the construction of CARMENES, an instrument the first of its kind worldwide, currently is in operation at CAHA observatory. The group includes people with experience in theory, observations, instrumentation and management and is well known in its line of research. The closest stellar neighbour to our Sun is Proxima Centauri. Proxima is not a solar-type star, but a small M dwarf, that is, low mass and the most abundant type of stars in our Galaxy and the nearest in distance to our Sun. Therefore, they deserve much more attention, on their own right. This will, in turn, result in a deeper understanding of this type of object and of any exoplanet they may host. Furthermore, in the past few years, we have moved from perceiving the M dwarfs as isolated systems to knowing that, according to our current understanding, there may be more planets than stars in our Galaxy, which implies a change of paradigm. This has taken us from having to study the stars alone to having to understand the complete stellar system formed by the star and their planets. To do so, we now need to know with sufficient precision the parameters and internal structure of the host stars and understand the physical processes behind their variability, the formation and dynamics of planets around them, any possible interaction between planets and their stars and the evolution in time of the whole system. We can even start characterizing their atmospheres in search for signatures of life! The main objective of our project is searching for habitable Earth-like exoplanets around M-dwarf stars. (more) |
INPhINIT Incoming PhD: "The high-resolution radio view of Luminous Infrared Galaxies: towards the Square Kilometre Array"Deadline: February, 4th 2021
Understanding the star-formation (SF) and mass assembly history of the Universe is one of the main challenges of astronomy, as they are key to explaining how galaxies form and evolve. Radio observations provide a unique tool to unveil SF across cosmic time because radio emission is not obscured by dust. With the construction of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) in the coming years, radio astronomy will enter a new era of high-sensitivity and high-resolution large surveys dedicated to solving this challenge. In preparation for this, we can now use the SKA pathfinders e-MERLIN and LOFAR arrays, the only instruments providing angular resolution comparable to the future SKA at the same wavelengths. To be prepared to exploit the science enabled by the SKA we first need to understand the physics of similar local objects. Our team participates and leads the e-MERLIN legacy project LIRGI (Luminous InfraRed Galaxy Inventory), which has observed a sample of the most luminous nearby infrared galaxies, with SF rates, gas and radiation densities similar to galaxies at higher redshift. The project will bring the scientific and technical background needed to design a future SKA Key Science Programs to trace the SF and galaxy assembly history for the majority of the observable galaxies in the Universe LIRGI is an international project with strong leadership from the IAA: Miguel Ángel Pérez-Torres, co-PI of LIRGI, and Antxon Alberdi, both senior researchers at the IAA-CSIC, are experts of the field with decades of observational experience and 100+ refereed publications. The team includes Javier Moldón, a postdoc with extensive radio interferometry experience and developer of the data processing tools required for this project. They are members of the SKA Extragalactic Continuum Science Working Group. Moldón is also part of the team developing a SKA Regional Centre prototype (SRC) at the IAA, which is one of the goals of the Severo Ochoa Project at the IAA. (more) |
INPhINIT Incoming PhD: "Computer Science and physical properties of minor bodies"Deadline: February, 4th 2021
Until the mid-2000's, the study of the physical properties of the minor bodies in our solar system was done using ground-based and space observations. In the last 20 years, large observational surveys, with a variety of targets (from observational cosmology to stellar astrophysics) have produced a plethora of data. Among these are observations of minor bodies, usually deemed as contamination to the main survey objective, but that are, nonetheless, very appreciated by the community. As a by-product of the processing pipelines, sometimes, the minor bodies are marked and identified and catalogues are published. One of the first, and most productive, of these catalogues was the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Moving Object Catalogue. This catalogue lists astrometric and photometric data for moving objects. One advantage of these kind of data is that, sometimes, they are ready to use in the databases where the survey’s team applied the pipeline to extract the data from the observations. Other source of data are the regular ground-based observations. These are observations planned with diverse objectives, for example the morphology of a galaxy, or the metallicity of an open stellar cluster, and a minor body can be found in the background because of its movement. We want to extract this information as well. We have expertise on determining rotational periods, shapes, and pole direction on minor bodies. Noteworthy, we participated in the discovery of the rings around the centaur Chariklo and Haumea. Furthermore, using the observations mentioned above for selected minor bodies, our group was able to identify the 3D shape of Varuna, to analyse the presence of rings around centaurs, to create a database of absolute magnitudes that can be converted to diameters, to search for new unidentified objects, to the discovery of active asteroids, and to the study of many more physical properties. This work is the perfect combination on combining computer science and planetary science. (more) |
INPhINIT Incoming PhD: "3D Sonification"Deadline: February, 4th 2021
Over the past decade, there has been an emerging research interest in converting astronomical phenomena into sound. Sonification is a technique that uses data as a source to generate sounds from their transformation and its considered the counterpart of visualization. Two of the main primary goals of the effort of sonification of astronomical data are making astronomy accessible to everybody (researchers included) who are blind or visually impaired, and investigating if sound can enable a more efficient way or a deeper understanding of the data. In this PhD project we will focus on exploring the best approaches to sonify Integral Field Spectroscopy data, also called 3D spectroscopy, packed in datacubes with 2D spatial information and a third 1D spectral axis, as well as their hyperdimensional products derived from its analysis. The candidate will use raw and processed data from surveys such us CALIFA, MaNGA or SAMI. This is an exploratory endeavor on the best practices to convey the power of these rich datasets to the general audience for educational and outreach purposes by using all available sonification techniques, from audification to parametric mapping or model-based sonifications. The final audio examples will be integrated in powerful animations and will be tested on different audiences to assess their effectivity. 3D sonification is under the umbrella of the CosMonic and Astroaccesible projects lead by Dr. Rubén García-Benito and Dr. Enrique Pérez-Montero, respectively, both researchers at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía. CosMonic is a sonification project with broad interest exploiting sound for analysis, artistic or pedagogical purposes and has produced a number of products for the inclusive astronomy project Astroaccesible which aims to emphasize the dissemination of astronomy to blind and low vision people by putting within their reach concepts and descriptions of the nature of our Universe that are understandable far beyond their visual perception. (more) |
NEW OPENING FOR A SEVERO OCHOA ENGINEER POSITION: "Mechanical engineer & quality assurance for aerospace instrumentation"Deadline: January, 21st 2021
IAA-CSIC offers an engineer contract in the framework of the Project “Severo Ochoa”. Candidates are expected to carry out their activity in the field of: - Mechanical engineering, - finite element method (thermal and mechanical), - knowledge in aerospace instrumentation, - and quality assurance. (more) |
NEW OPENING FOR A SEVERO OCHOA ENGINEER POSITION: "Miniaturised power converter modules for interplanetary missions"Deadline: January, 21st 2021
IAA-CSIC offers an engineer contract in the framework of the Project “Severo Ochoa”. Candidates are expected to carry out their activity in the field of the design of power supplies for space applications. Candidates should have a good familiarity with ESA missions’ characteristics and requirements, expertise in the development of power supplies and their characterization through the design of tests (electrical, functional, electromagnetic compatibility and so on) and test equipment like electronics ground support equipment. (more) |
NEW OPENING FOR A SEVERO OCHOA POSTDOC POSITION: "Detection and characterization of planetary systems"Deadline: November, 30th 2020
IAA-CSIC offers a postdoctoral contract in the framework of the Project “Severo Ochoa”. Candidates are expected to carry out their activity in the research line “Towards the understanding of the planetary systems”, within the framework of the CARMENES project. CARMENES is aimed at detecting terrestrial temperate exoplanets around small red stars with the radial velocity technique to characterize the planetary system as a whole, including its star and circumstellar environment. The research activity under the proposed contract will focus in the IAA responsibility for the immediate exploitation of the CARMENES survey, its Legacy-Plus project and the instrumental upgrade of CARMENES, together with the follow-up of NASA's TESS mission. The candidate will also have the opportunity to engage in the Phase B activities for the instrument HIRES/ELT. (more) |
NEW OPENING FOR A SEVERO OCHOA POSTDOC POSITION: "Minor bodies as tracers of planetary atmospheres enrichment"Deadline: November, 18th 2020
IAA-CSIC offers a postdoctoral contract in the framework of the Project “Severo Ochoa”. Candidates are expected to carry out their activity in the research line of Physical studies on minor bodies (more) |
NEW OPENING FOR A SEVERO OCHOA POSTDOC POSITION: "Machine Learning and Big Data applied to astronomical surveys, classification, and image processing"Deadline: November, 18th 2020
IAA-CSIC offers a postdoctoral contract in the framework of the Project “Severo Ochoa”. Candidates are expected to carry out their activity in the research line of Stellar Systems and Galactic Centre, led by E. Alfaro and R. Schoedel, respectively. (more) |
NEW OPENING FOR A SEVERO OCHOA POSTDOC POSITION: "On the evolution of XELGs from J-PAs data"Deadline: November, 18th 2020
IAA-CSIC offers a postdoctoral contract in the framework of the Project “Severo Ochoa”. Candidates are expected to carry out their activity in the research line of “Galaxy evolution and Cosmology”. (more) |
NEW OPENING FOR A SEVERO OCHOA ENGINEER POSITION: "Integral Field Spectroscopy instrumentation"Deadline: November, 18th 2020
IAA-CSIC offers an engineer contract in the framework of the Project “Severo Ochoa”. Candidates are expected to carry out their activity in the field of Integral Field Spectroscopy and reinforce the IAA capabilities in the optical design and fibres of astrophysical instruments. The candidate will be involved in the feasibility study (FS) of the GAMAICA instrument for the 3.5 Calar Alto telescope, in particular in the design of the fiber and optics In case the instrument is not selected after the FS phase, the candidate will be integrated in other instrumentation projects at the IAA, including the new instrument for CAHA to be selected after the FS. (more) |
NEW OPENING FOR A SEVERO OCHOA ENGINEER POSITION: "Deploying Open Science Services and science domain tools on the protoSRC platform at IAA "Deadline: November, 18th 2020
IAA-CSIC offers an engineer contract in the framework of the Project “Severo Ochoa”. Candidates are expected to carry out their activity in the research line of Enhanced Science infrastructure and research capabilities, and in particular in the development of a prototype SKA Regional Centre. (more) |
NEW OPENING FOR A SEVERO OCHOA PHD POSITION: "Interpretation of the infrared lines from starburst galaxies based on photoionization models"Deadline: October, 27th 2020
A four-year PhD contract is offered in the framework of the Project “Severo Ochoa” at IAA-CSIC. The selected candidate is expected to carry out her/his activity in the research line of Galaxy Evolution and Cosmology. Supervisor: Enrique Pérez Montero (epm@iaa.es). The candidate will incorporate to the "Estallidos de formación estelar en galaxias/Starbursts in galaxies" group in the IAA-CSIC. The research activity of the Estallidos group is devoted to the study of galaxies hosting very massive episodes of star formation both in the local and the young Universe,deriving new information that helps to describe in detail the properties of the host galaxies and the interplay between massive stars and the interstellar medium. There is a large amount of available and incoming observational data for this kind of objects coming from different facilities at various spectral ranges. In particular, IR range is going to become very relevant to study the high-redshift regime in the optical and the upcoming facilities in the next decade that will largely increment the amount of data in the near and mid-infrared for both local and distant galaxies (e.g. EMIR in GTC, JWST, ALMA...). For this reason, it is timely and necessary to put more efforts in the theoretical and computational interpretation of all the available data following previous work making use of photoionization models to compute all the relevant physical quantities and extract new conclusions. (more) |
NEW OPENING FOR A SEVERO OCHOA PHD POSITION: "Formation and evolution of lenticular galaxies and their environment"Deadline: October, 27th 2020
A four-year PhD contract is offered in the framework of the Project “Severo Ochoa” at IAA-CSIC. The selected candidate is expected to carry out her/his activity in the research line of Galaxy Evolution and Cosmology. Supervisor: Jaime Perea (jaime@iaa.es) The proposed research refers to the field of galaxy formation and evolution by means of observations at different wavelenght ranges, numerical simulations, and statistical inference using Machine Learning applied to large astronomical datasets. The thesis topic will cover the study of the formation of lenticular galaxies through gravitational interaction or merger of late type galaxies. The Project is to be developed within an important national and international collaboration, participating in several observational projects that involve top-level ground-based facilities such as Calar Alto, GTC, MeerKAT or the VLA. Access is granted to the powerful computing resources needed for the simulations. (more) |
NEW OPENING FOR A SEVERO OCHOA PHD POSITION: "Inversion of spectral cubes from airglow spectrographs"Deadline: October, 27th 2020
A four-year PhD contract is offered in the framework of the Project “Severo Ochoa” at IAA-CSIC. The selected candidate will carry out her/his activity in the research line of advanced software tools for IAA instrumentation, scientific exploitation and modelling. Supervisors: M. García Comas and M.J. López González (maya@iaa.es, mariajose@iaa.es). Monitoring from the surface is an indispensable tool for detecting the impact of climate change on the mesosphere and the lower thermosphere (MLT) of the Earth in support of space instrumentation" (NFS's Geospace Science Program, 2016). Airglow instruments provide continuous high precision MLT observations and allow the identification of MLT variations at multiple time scales, the study of atmospheric dynamics and the determination of biases in measurements from space. Moreover, the current satellite fleet that observes the MLT, aging and in cases even disappearing, coupled with the lack of funding by space agencies to launch new satellites will inevitably lead to an observational gap from space. In that context, surface measurements will be essential to merge the current space probe databases with future ones. To cover these aspects, the IAA-CSIC is currently developing the high-resolution Multi-spectral Imager of the Mesopause Airglow spectrometer (MIMA), designed to take up to 400 daily images of airglow spectra and provide regional temperature maps of the MLT. Its goals are: 1) to identify early signs of climate change; 2) to study coupling and multi-temporal atmospheric variability; and 3) to serve for correction of instrumental drifts and fusion of discontinued multi-satellite measurements. MIMA is expected to relieve SATI at the OSN as the only instrument of this type in Spain. It will operate for at least one solar cycle as part of a global cooperation program for monitoring the MLT, namely the Network for the Detection of the Mesopause Change (NDMC). From the volume of its airglow spectral cubes (space2D+frequency), we will derive temperature fields, for which it is necessary to develop reliable and efficient retrieval algorithms. We will also investigate the time and space variability of temperatures in order to improve our understanding of atmospheric waves. (more) |
NEW OPENING FOR A SEVERO OCHOA PHD POSITION: "Magnetic interaction of planets with M stars using radio techniques"Deadline: October, 27th 2020
A four-year PhD contract is offered in the framework of the Project “Severo Ochoa” at IAA-CSIC. The selected candidate will carry out her/his activity in the research line of The Understanding of Planetary Systems, working on the study of star-planet interaction in M stars, mainly by means of radio observations. Supervisors: Miguel Ángel Pérez Torres and Jose Luis Ortiz (torres@iaa.es, ortiz@iaa.es) M stars are the most abundant type of stars in our galaxy. Due to their low mass and other characteristics, they are ideal for searching Earth-type planets. The finding of a planet in the habitable zone of the dwarf M star Proxima Centauri has represented a major breakthrough in exoplanetary science, especially because the mass and size of the planet is likely similar to that of Earth and other Earth-like planets will be found around numerous M stars in the future thanks to several ongoing surveys such as the CARMENES survey at Calar Alto observatory. We propose a PhD project where the successful candidate will become familiar with radio observation techniques, as well as with physics of planets and ultracool dwarf stars. (more) |
NEW OPENING FOR A SEVERO OCHOA POSTDOC POSITION: "Composition of exoplanetary atmospheres: modelling and observations"Deadline: April, 13th 2020
IAA-CSIC offers a two-year postdoctoral contract in the framework of the Project “Severo Ochoa” which comprises an strategic research line devoted to study the physico-chemical conditions that determine the neutral and ionospheric composition of exoplanetary atmospheres. This topic also encompasses radiative transfer calculations to obtain synthetic spectra for planning observations or to retrieve information from archival data. Candidates are expected to carry out their activity in both of the research lines stated above. (more) |
NEW OPENING FOR A SEVERO OCHOA POSTDOC POSITION: "Identification and characterization of galaxy populations in the J-PAS survey"Deadline: April, 8th 2020
IAA-CSIC offers a two-year postdoctoral contract in the framework of the Project “Severo Ochoa”. Candidates are expected to carry out their activity in the research line of Galaxy Evolution. In particular, the candidates will work in the scientific exploitation of the data from the J-PAS survey (http://www.j-pas.org/) and within the Galaxy Evolution science working group of the J-PAS collaboration, and Dra. Rosa González Delgado. (more) |
NEW OPENING FOR A SEVERO OCHOA ENGINEER POSITION: "Polarization of light"Deadline: April, 8th 2020
IAA-CSIC offers a two-year engineer position in the framework of the “Severo Ochoa” Project. The applicant is expected to work in the field of polarization of light in the laboratory and reinforce the IAA capabilities in the optical design of astrophysical instruments. The work will be carried out under the umbrella of the Solar Physics Group (SPG) of the Solar System Department of the IAA. The SPG participates in the development and construction of space and balloon borne solar instrumentation for the Solar Orbiter, Lagrange and Sunrise missions and is a leading institution in the field of solar physics. (more) |
NEW OPENING FOR A SEVERO OCHOA POSTDOC POSITION: "Detection and characterization of exoplanetary systems and characterization of their stars"Deadline: April, 8th 2020
IAA-CSIC offers a two-year postdoctoral contract in the framework of the Project “Severo Ochoa”. Candidates are expected to carry out their activity in the research line of Planetary Systems. (more) |
NEW OPENING FOR A SEVERO OCHOA POSTDOC POSITION: "Integrating the IAA SRC prototype into the first global network of SRC prototypes and developing an SKA Regional Centre archive"Deadline: April, 8th 2020
IAA-CSIC offers a a two-year postdoctoral contract in the framework of the Project “Severo Ochoa”. Candidates are expected to carry out their activity in the research line of Enhanced Science infrastructure and research capabilities, and in particular in the development of a prototype SKA Regional Centre. (more) |
NEW OPENING FOR A SEVERO OCHOA POSTDOC POSITION: "Postdoctoral researcher with experience in the analysis of very-high-energy gamma-ray data from Cherenkov arrays"Deadline: April, 7th 2020
IAA-CSIC offers a two-year postdoctoral contract in the framework of the “Severo Ochoa” Project of the Institute. The researcher is expected to carry out their activity in the “Galaxy Evolution and Cosmology” research line of the project. In particular, the researcher will work in the wake of the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) Group of the IAA-CSIC. The CTA Group at the IAA-CSIC includes five astrophysicists and two software engineers from three different scientific departments at the institute. The group develops different scientific research lines for the study of blazars and relativistic jets in AGN, SNE/SNR, GRBs, and other transient sources including those related to the emission of gravitational waves, from a multi-spectral-range and a multi-messenger perspective. The participation of the IAA-CTA in CTA also involves the development of new software for data analysis of CTA in general, and LST in particular. (more) |
NEW OPENING FOR A SEVERO OCHOA POSTDOC POSITION: "Characterization of escaping exo-atmospheres through observations and modelling"Deadline: March, 31st 2020
IAA-CSIC offers a two years postdoctoral contract in the framework of the Project “Severo Ochoa”. Candidates are expected to carry out their activity in the research line of Planetary Systems. (more) |
INPhINIT Incoming PhD: " Understanding how exoplanets are born, how they mature and how they survive the death of their star"Deadline: February, 4th 2020
CARMENES consortium and instrument study planetary systems and their stars. We focus on very small stars because of the great interest they present for the discovery of habitable exo-Earths. To this aim, our group built CARMENES, an instrument, the first of its kind worldwide, currently in operation at CAHA observatory, to detect habitable exoplanets. The closest stellar neighbour to our Sun is Proxima Centauri, a small M dwarf, the most abundant type of stars in our Galaxy and the nearest in distance to our Sun. We know that, according to observations, most of them host planetary systems. To understand them better, we need to accurately determine the parameters and internal structure of the host stars and understand the physical processes behind their variability and the formation and dynamics of planets around them. Most exciting is to learn about the evolution in time of the whole system. Stars form from enormous clouds of gas and dust. However, we do not know yet if their planets form from the same cloud, once it has collapsed to form a disk orbiting the star, or by coagulation of the dust into larger rocks to form the core of planets. We do not know well where they form within the disk or how they migrate to form the mature, close-in systems that we observe. This is due, mainly, to the fact that there are extremely few detections of protoplanets with the RV technique, which would provide accurate minimum masses and orbital parameters for these objects. At the other end of the star’s life, we have not detected yet exoplanets around white dwarfs (WDs), the final fate of stars like our Sun. Their detection would probe the evolution of planetary systems during the late stellar evolutionary phases to learn about the fate of our own Solar System. Searches using the classical RV monitoring are hampered by the shape of the light (the spectrum) emitted by these stars. However, material falling onto the WD from an orbiting debris disk produces signatures that make this RV monitoring possible. (more) |
INPhINIT Incoming PhD: "The role of angular momentum in galaxy evolution: A study of neutral gas in isolated galaxies with Square Kilometre Array pathfinders"Deadline: February, 4th 2020
AMIGA (Analysis of the interstellar Medium of Isolated GAlaxies) is an interdisciplinary team at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía playing a major role in the SKA international project, a next generation radio telescope which will be the largest scientific infrastructure on Earth, and output data at a rate comparable to the entire present day bandwidth of the internet. The PI of this position coordinates the Spanish participation in the SKA, while her AMIGA team is strongly involved in preparatory science and in developing a Precursor SKA Regional Centre (SRC), an environment to provide access and resources to exploit data from SKA and its precursors. She has mentored a total of 6 PhD theses, 17 postdocs and 7 other staff. Thus, AMIGA provides an exceptional opportunity, unique in Spain, for a PhD candidate to become deeply involved in SKA, a facility that will be transformational for radio astronomy over the coming decades. The proposed project falls into the core of AMIGA science, which focuses on comparing the properties of galaxies in extreme environments, with a special emphasis on atomic gas (HI) as a tracer of interactions, in which AMIGA has a unique expertise in Spain. The main AMIGA sample consists of about 700 highly isolated galaxies in the nearby Universe, acting as a reference for how galaxies evolve in the absence of external influences. A fundamental, but little studied, property in regulating the gas content and star formation in galaxies is their angular momentum (e.g. Obreschkow+2016, Lutz+ 2018). It may act as a hidden variable in scaling relations between optical properties (e.g. diameter or luminosity) and HI mass, and could potentially explain why such relations have considerable scatter. In the existing studies there are almost no isolated galaxies by the strict AMIGA criteria, hence an in-depth study of the angular momenta of isolated galaxies is crucially missing, and this constitutes the research context of the proposed PhD work. (more) |
INPhINIT Incoming PhD: "Searching Planetary Systems in Death Suns"Deadline: February, 4th 2020
The search for planetary systems around stars other than the Sun (i.e., exoplanets) has become one of the major topics in modern Astrophysics. The exoplanet research group at the IAA has led the construction of CARMENES, a spectrograph currently in operation at the 3.5m telescope of the CAHA Observatory specially designed to “hunt” exoplanets orbiting M dwarf stars in the habitability zone. One of the main objectives of the Severo Ochoa program at the IAA is the scientific exploitation of CARMENES to detect a whole population of exoplanets and to characterize their atmospheres. Exoplanets have been found around many different types of stars, with biases depending on the detection method towards giant planets (photometric transits), planets in close orbits (radial velocity studies of Sun like stars), and planets in the habitable zone (radial velocity studies of M dwarf stars). Only exoplanets around white dwarfs, the final fate of low- and intermediate-mass stars including our Sun, are missing so far. Theoretical models predict the survival of planetary systems through the evolution of these stars along the red giant phases and during the short-lived planetary nebula phase. White dwarfs with gaseous debris disks are very promising candidates to host planetary systems whose detection would probe the relevant parameters for the late survival of planets to investigate the final fate of our own Solar System. (more) |
INPhINIT Incoming PhD: "Remote visualization of 3D radioastronomical Big Data for SKA Regional Centres"Deadline: February, 4th 2020
The AMIGA team at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA) is an interdisciplinary group actively involved in the SKA (Square Kilometre Array), a next generation radio telescope which will be the largest scientific infrastructure on Earth and will deliver 600PB/yr to a network of SKA Regional Centres (SRCs). The SRCs will provide access to SKA data and resources for their exploitation. The PI of this position (LVM) coordinates the Spanish participation in the SKA, with strong support from J. Garrido (JG, coadvisor of the proposed Project), and her team is involved at both scientific and technical levels. AMIGA complements fundamental science with applied e-Science research, aiming to enhance scientific work, transparency and Open Science. The team contributes to the development of standards for the Virtual Observatory (VO) and is a member of the ESCAPE H2020 project, aiming to address the Open Science challenges shared by ESFRI facilities. The group participated in the SKA Science Data Processor design, contributing to the SKA Preservation and Delivery subsystems. AMIGA also participates in the European SRC design (AENEAS H2020 project) and LVM is nominated by the Ministry to represent Spain in the international SRC Steering Committee. She leads the development of a Precursor SKA Regional Centre at IAA. LVM has mentored 6 PhD theses and 17 postdocs and 7 other staff. AMIGA provides a unique opportunity in Spain for a PhD candidate to become involved in SKA and the SRCs. The large size of the SKA data (2TB-112TB/data product) will change how science is done, moving to a new paradigm where scientists can no longer download data. New research on visualization of 3D radio data is needed, since the existing implementation of hierarchical tiling of sky regions in the VO ecosystem (HiPS IVOA standard) lacks interactivity and cannot be used for scientific analysis unless the data is downloaded. This constitutes the research context of the PhD work. (more) |
INPhINIT Incoming PhD: "A fault-tolerant computing architecture for a space weather mission "Deadline: February, 4th 2020
The IAA’s Solar Physics Group (SPG) is a dynamic research group formed by scientists and engineers from many disciplines whose main scientific interests root in solar spectropolarimetry and magnetic fields from three points of view: theoretical, observational, and instrumental. Investigations and developments are carried out on: · the structure and physical nature of photospheric magnetic structures like plage and network flux tubes, the umbra, the penumbra, the moat of sunspots, and the internetwork magnetic fields, as well as on the magnetic coupling of the various atmospheric layers of the Sun; · the design, development, and construction of solar instrumentation for space missions and stratospheric balloons: PHI instrument for Solar Orbiter and IMaX, IMaX+ and SCIP instruments for Sunrise. · the radiative transfer equation (RTE) for polarized light in the presence of magnetic fields, in order to work out the sensitivities of the Stokes spectrum on the various physical quantities of the solar photosphere. Of relevance to this project is our development of an electronic inverter of the RTE and a compression core for sending the data to ground. The present proposal builds upon this development. The SPG is currently working on pre-developments for the Polarimetric and Magnetic Imager instrument (PMI) which will be boarded on the Lagrange mission (ESA). If approved, the SPG will have co-PI responsibility for developing the whole Electronic Unit and harness of PMI. In the harsh environment of Lagrange, we cannot use common commercial-off-the-shelf processors due to radiation problems and to power limitations. The combination of state-of-the-art, radiation tolerant devices like ASIC or FPGA becomes almost mandatory. The computing architecture embedded within those devices must be specifically designed to deal with a particular problem, therefore they will have be tailored to each stage of processing, which implies a great design and validation effort. (more) |
NEW OPENING FOR A SEVERO OCHOA PhD POSITION: "Modelling non-LTE IR emissions of exo-atmospheres: Interpretation of JWST spectra"Deadline: November, 7th 2019
IAA-CSIC offers a four years PhD contract in the framework of the Project “Severo Ochoa”. Candidates are expected to carry out their activity in the research line of planetary system. Supervisor: M. López-Puertas (puertas@iaa.es). The large number of exoplanets known to date (>4000) lead to their study in a systematic way, e.g., their characterization, how do they form and how they evolve. Part of its study is the characterization of their atmospheres, which is key for studying their origin and evolution. That is, one of the major fields of research in exoplanets nowadays is the connection between atmospheric compositions and formation. Important advances about atmospheric composition have been carried out recently, both from space and ground-based observations. Next major step forward is expected from JWST observations, where the moderate resolution (R~2700) at near and mid-infrared is expected to advance significantly the characterization of the atmospheres. The work proposed falls in this context. Several groups have developed retrievals codes in preparation for JWST measurements analysis. So far, no non-LTE study is being carried out, even though non-LTE is expected to be important, principally in the eclipse emission measurements, as have been shown for the Earth’s atmosphere and for some exoplanets. Ultimately, the proposed non-LTE modelling will be a module of a more general retrieval code that we at IAA plan to develop. (more) |
NEW OPENING FOR A SEVERO OCHOA PhD POSITION: " High angular resolution studies of recently detected star clusters at the Galactic Centre - the initial mass function in extreme environments"Deadline: November, 7th 2019
IAA-CSIC offers a four years PhD contract in the framework of the Project “Severo Ochoa”. Candidates are expected to carry out their activity in the research line of starts formation in the Milky Way and Local Universe. Supervisor: R. Schödel (rainer@iaa.es). In the GALACTICNUCLEUS survey we have recently been able to confirm the presence of young stars (< 30 Myr) throughout the nuclear disk of the Milky Way, within 100 pc of the central black hole (Nogueras-Lara et al., subm. to Nature Astronomy), via an analysis of the K-band luminosity function. This agrees with the prediction from ionising radiation and three detected Cepheids (Matsunaga et al. 2011) that there must be at least a dozen so far undetected young clusters hidden in the high density background of the Galactic Centre - in adddition to the known massive young clusters (Arches, Quintuplet, central parsec). Due to the extreme and spatially highly variable (on scales of 1”) interstellar extinction toward the Galactic Centre, these clusters have remained undetected so far. Thanks to our work on proper motions, by combining GALACTICNUCLEUS with the HST Paschen Alpha survey (and new data that we are (obtaining with VLT/HAWK-I), we are now able to pinpoint the location of these clusters via proper motion measurements (work of B. Shahzamanian, postdoc in the IAA GC Group). (more) |
NEW OPENING FOR A SEVERO OCHOA PhD POSITION: "Tomography of solar photospheric magnetic fields using Solar Orbiter"Deadline: November, 7th 2019
IAA-CSIC offers a four years PhD contract in the framework of the Project “Severo Ochoa”. Candidates are expected to carry out their activity in the research line of solar physics. Supervisor: J.C. Del Toro Iniesta (jti@iaa.es) Solar photospheric magnetic fields are currently being monitored from the Earth point of view using ground-based and space-borne observatories. The Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager (PHI), a vector magnetograph on board the Solar Orbiter (SO) ESA mission whose launch is scheduled for February 2020, will be the first-ever instrument to provide measurements of solar magnetic fields at different angular spacings from Earth. SO/PHI, therefore, opens up a window of opportunity for unique science. With its two telescopes, a Full Disk Telescope (FDT) and a High Resolution Telescope (HRT), PHI will achieve 2 and 0.3 arcseconds spatial resolution at perihelion (0.3 AU) while providing high sensitivity, full spectropolarimetric measurements. Such vantage points will allow to perform stereoscopic measurements of solar magnetic fields. Stereoscopy is nothing but the three dimensional reconstruction of -in our particular case- magnetic fields, by combining SO/PHI measurements with those from other instruments on or orbiting Earth. The main goal of the study is to investigate the nature of magnetoconvection in the Sun by analyzing the three-dimensional temporal evolution of magnetic fields in different solar scenarios (quiet Sun, active regions and, for the very first time, the solar poles). (more) |
NEW OPENING FOR A SEVERO OCHOA PhD POSITION: "Jets, Accretion and Magnetic Fields Around Supermassive Black Holes at the Centers of Galaxies"Deadline: November, 7th 2019
The IAA-CSIC offers a 4 year PhD contract in the framework of the Project “Severo Ochoa”. Candidates are expected to carry out their activity in research line: Galaxy Evolution, Cosmology and Black Holes Accretion. Supervisor: Iván Agudo (iagudo@iaa.es) Active galactic nuclei (AGN) are the most energetic objects known so far, and are produced by the fall of gas at the center of some galaxies towards their central supermassive black hole (SMBH). Among the large diversity of known AGN, there is a fundamental difference between radio-emitting AGN and non-radio-emitting AGN, the first being those that produce powerful relativistic jets of magnetized and highly energized plasma. These jets in AGN are propelled along the rotation poles of the accretion disk-SMBH system. One of the most exotic types of radio loud AGN is blazars, a class defined by the extreme variability of its non-thermal radiation from radio wavelengths to the highest gamma-ray energies. The remarkable properties of blazars include apparent superluminal motions up to ~ 50 times the speed of light, extreme changes in total flux and linear polarization on time scales of up to minutes, and extremely variable gamma-ray luminosities that may exceed those of other bands of the electromagnetic spectrum in up to 3 orders of magnitude. In blazars, the relativistic jets emit most of their radiation (and point) at an angle of <10º with regard to the line of sight, which makes them to shorten their time scales of variability to give blazars the remarkable properties by which they are known. Other types of radio-loud AGN include radio galaxies, with jet viewing angles >> 10º, that display much longer time scales of variability, and much less luminous emission at all ranges of the spectrum. At these radio wavelengths, relativistic jets in radio galaxies are visible in their entirety from the innermost scales near the central SMBH, to distances that even frequently exceed the size of the host galaxy. This PhD project is guided by the motivation to answer some of the main current questions in the field of AGN research, i.e.: a) What are the properties of the environment near the central supermassive black hole (accretion flow)? Why do some AGN produce jets and others not? b) What particle acceleration mechanisms capable of keeping jets in AGN collimated until such long distances are predominant? What is the composition (e--e+ or e--p+) of those jets? c) What is the region of production of gamma-ray flares? What is their dominant very-high-energy emission mechanism? To attach these questions, a combination of astronomical observations and numerical simulations will be carried out for the interpretation of the multi-wavelength emission (at all available spectral range from very high energy gamma rays to radio), and linear and circularly polarized millimeter emission in a set of different AGN and in Sgr A * (the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way). With this, the student will infer the structure of the magnetic fields in the plasmas responsible for the emission, the composition of the plasmas, the emission models in all the ranges of the spectrum, and the density and magnetic field of the surrounding interstellar material. (more) |
NEW OPENING FOR A SEVERO OCHOA POSTDOC POSITION: "Star formation in the Galactic Centre"Deadline: October, 17th 2019
There is a new opening for a Severo Ochoa Postdoc position at the IAA, funded by the Severo Ochoa Excellence grant. Candidates are expected to carry out their activity in the research line of Star formation in the Milky Way and Local Universe. This is a two year position with the possibility of extending it for one year. Candidates should have a good familiarity with infrared high angular resolution observations of the Galactic centre; Expertise in stellar proper motion measurements from high angular resolution imaging; Track record of (observational) research on Galactic center science; Excellent knowledge of English (more) |
NEW OPENING FOR A SEVERO OCHOA POSTDOC POSITION: "Milky way stellar streams"Deadline: October, 17th 2019
There is a new opening for a Severo Ochoa Postdoc position at the IAA, funded by the Severo Ochoa Excellence grant. Candidates are expected to carry out their activity in the research line of Star formation in the MIlky Way and Local Universe. This is a two year position. Candidates should have a PhD in Astrophysics, with experience in the study of resolved stellar populations in galaxies and precision photometry of wide fields. (more) |