To cover several positions in our team, we are looking for:
- People motivated to work in a multidisciplinary environment in an outstanding project at an international level.
- Finished degree (or just pending final project) in engineering (preferably software/computing), mathematics, physics or similar.
- Java programming. Python will be a plus.
- Expertise in Linux. Shell scripting will be a plus.
- Good English level (at least B2).
- For one of the positions: Hadoop, Spark, Big Data and Data Mining will be a plus.
- For one of the positions: Linux administration will be a plus.
We offer:
- Work in an European cornerstone research project (ESA).
- Depending on the applicant's profile, tasks on: programming, analysis and data interpretation, development of new science or statistics algorithms, support/administration of virtualized computing systems...
- Possibility to get promoted and to reach other projects.
- Full-time contract (reduced-time is also possible).
- Flexible schedule.
************ CATALÀ ***********
L'Equip Gaia de la Universitat de Barcelona (IEEC - ICCUB) ha contribuït des dels seus inicis al desenvolupament del concepte i disseny de la missió Gaia de l'Agència Espacial Europea (ESA). El nostre equip està realitzant importants contribucions amb simulacions i processaments de dades astromètriques i fotomètriques per a la missió. L'equip està format per personal expert en ciència, enginyeria, tecnologia i anàlisi de dades per desenvolupar i operar software de processament de grans volums de dades, validació i explotació a nivell científic. El nostre equip és responsable del Centre de Processament de dades de Barcelona, allotjat al supercomputador Marenostrum.
Busquem, per cobrir diverses places a l'equip:- Gent motivada per treballar en un entorn multidisciplinar en un projecte punter a nivell internacional.
- Titulació finalitzada (o pendent tant sols de treball final) en enginyeria (preferiblement informàtica), matemàtiques, física o similars.
- Programació en Java. Es valoraran coneixements de Python.
- Experiència en entorns Linux. Es valoraran coneixements de shell scripting.
- Bon nivell d'anglès (mínim B2).
- Per una de les places es valoraran coneixements o experiència en Hadoop, Spark, Big Data i Data Mining.
- Per una de les places es valoraran coneixements o experiència en administració Linux.
Oferim:
- Treball en un projecte punter de recerca a nivell europeu (ESA).
- Segons perfil, tasques de: programació, anàlisi i interpretació de dades, desenvolupament de nous algoritmes científics o estadístics, suport/administració de sistemes de computació virtualitzats...
- Possibilitat de promoció i d'ampliació a altres projectes.
- Contracte a jornada completa (possibilitat de jornada reduïda).
- Horari flexible.
© 2013 ICCUB | Graphic design by A. Szmidt | Develope
Four postdoctoral positions, funded by the European Research Council, are now open at the University of Barcelona. Selected candidates will work with Prof Roberto Emparan and other members of the group on theoretical aspects of black hole physics, broadly defined.
Appointments will begin in the Fall of 2018 (or possibly earlier) for a period of 2+1 years, with the third year subject to performance and funding availability. The deadline for applications is November 30, 2017.
Faculty members of our group working on black holes, gravitation and related areas include Bartomeu Fiol, Cristiano Germani, Jaume Garriga, David Mateos, Josep M. Pons, and Enric Verdaguer. For more information, visit our website http://icc.ub.edu/
Application procedure
The University of Barcelona is part of a group of European institutes with a centralized system of postdoctoral applications. Thus interested candidates should apply through the following website, choosing Barcelona as one of their preferred institutes:
https://itf.fys.kuleuven.be/postdoc-application/
Postdoctoral positions are now open at the Institute of Cosmos Sciences (ICC) at the University of Barcelona. Candidates in the following areas are encouraged to apply:
- Particle physics phenomenology related to neutrino physics, Higgs physics, B physics and effective theories.
- Cosmology and astroparticle physics.
- String theory and holography broadly defined.
Faculty members of our group working in these areas include Jorge Casalderrey-Solana, Domenec Espriu, Joaquim Gomis, M.C. Gonzalez-Garcia, David Mateos, Federico Mescia, Josep Maria Pons, Jorge Russo, Joan Sola, Joan Soto, Pere Talavera, and Josep Taron.
For more information about research at the ICC please visit http://icc.ub.edu
Appointments will be for a period of 2+1 years with the third year subject to performance and funding availability.
The default starting date will be in the Fall 2018, but earlier starting dates can be considered. The deadline for applications is November 30, 2017.
Applications must be done online through the ICC. Applications should include a CV, a statement of research interests, a list of publications, and the names of three senior physicists who will provide letters of recommendation.
We also recommend to the applicants to send a short email to the faculty member of our group whose work is more closely related to their interest letting them know of their application.
The physical cosmology group at ICC (Institute of Sciences of the Cosmos) of the University of Barcelona (http://icc.ub.edu), is seeking outstanding candidates for a postdoctoral position to work on cosmology with large galaxy surveys, and in the areas of interest to the group. We are looking for researchers with a strong background in cosmology and in the analysis of large-scale structure surveys, but exceptional candidates of other areas will also be considered.
Applicants must have a PhD in Astronomy, Astrophysics or Physics, or have fulfilled all the requirements for a PhD by the time the contact starts.
The successful candidate will work with Licia Verde and the group on the interpretation of state-of-the art and forthcoming cosmological data. Experience with cosmology, analysis of data, statistics, possibly applied in the cosmological context and familiarity with coding is highly desirable. Familiarity with high performance computing is a welcome plus.
Members of the group are involved in the following surveys/collaborations: DESI, EUCLID, and COrE.
The appointment will be guaranteed for two years, and can be extended depending on performance and availability of funding.
The position is associated to the IDEAS European Research Council ERC-COG grant n. 725327 (P.I. Verde)
A complete application (curriculum vitae, bibliography, summary of previous research, a statement of research interests and at least three references) should be uploaded here by clicking on "apply now". Referees will be contacted automatically once the application is submitted.
Applications will be accepted until the position is filled with consideration guaranteed to all applications received by Nov, 10, 2017. The position is expected to begin in the fall of 2018, but earlier starting date is negotiable. Informal scientific inquiries can be directed to Prof. Licia Verde (liciaverde@icc.ub.edu). Questions regarding the application process should be directed to (secretaria@icc.ub.edu).
The ICC is a worldwide-recognized interdisciplinary center devoted to fundamental research in the fields of cosmology, astrophysics and particle physics. In addition, the institute has a strong technology program through its participation in international collaborations in observational astronomy and experimental particle physics. The ICC is one of the few Spanish research institutes awarded with the Maria de Maeztu distinction for excellence in research and provides a dynamic and stimulating environment for young researchers.
Included Benefits:
Social security, national healthcare etc. paid by the employer (with employee contribution through standard taxes) see e.g.: http://spain.othercountries.com/pages/articles/index.asp?page=social-security
- Holography and QCD in extreme conditions
- Search of new physics in radiative flavour decays
- Passport
- Curriculum Vitae
- Bachelor Title (and grades certificate) with certain requirements
- Master Title (and grades certificate) with certain requirements
All applications must be completed online at:
https://sede.micinn.gob.es/ayudaspredoctorales/
These grants are for PhD students interested in doing their Doctorate at the Institute of Cosmos Sciences.
According to the bases of this grant, it is necessary to have a supervisor of the Institute that agrees to work with you.
On the link there is all the information need in Catalan, you can contact the Secretariat for any doubts you might have.
“La Caixa” Foundation is launching a postdoctoral fellowships programme in which candidates will be able to come to one centre distinguished with the Maria de Maeztu award or the Severo Ochoa award, among them, the Institute of Cosmos Sciences.
Description of our Institute:
The Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the University of Barcelona (ICCUB) is an interdisciplinary centre devoted to fundamental research in the fields of cosmology, astrophysics and particle physics. In addition, the Institute has a strong technology program through its participation in international collaborations in observational astronomy and experimental particle physics.
The ICCUB was awarded the Maria de Maeztu distinction which recognizes our leadership and research impact. Our main lines of research, as well as the associated faculty members, can be found here: http://icc.ub.edu/
Description of the fellowship:
Researchers in the Junior Leader “la Caixa” programme will have a three-year contract in accordance with employment legislation in force in Spain, pursuant to provisions regarding occupational health and safety and social security, with access to suitable resources, equipment and facilities.
Salary: please refer to this document.
Requirements for candidates:
Researchers of any nationality are eligible for the Junior Leader programme. In order to get accepted, candidates must meet the following requirements:
Experience: They should have earned their doctoral degree three to six years prior to the deadline for applications. The date of the doctoral thesis defence will be understood to be the date when the doctoral degree was obtained.
Geographic mobility: Candidates must not have resided or carried out their main activity (work, studies, etc.) in Spain for more than 12 months in the 3 years immediately prior to the call deadline. Short stays such as holidays will not be taken into account.
For more information about the call please refer to this document.
Applications:
All applications must be completed online at: https://www.juniorleaderlacaixa.org
However, we ask interested candidates to let us know of their interest directly by contacting our faculty member whose research is closest to theirs.
Concerned about the underrepresentation of women in the fields of sciences of the cosmos, the ICCUB strongly encourages young women to apply.
“LaCaixa” Foundation is launching a postdoctoral fellowships programme in which candidates will be able to remain in Spain.
Descriptionof our Institute:
The Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the University of Barcelona (ICCUB) is an interdisciplinary centre devoted to fundamental research in the fields of cosmology, astrophysics and particle physics. In addition, the Institute has a strong technology program through its participation in international collaborations in observational astronomy and experimental particle physics.
The ICCUB was awarded the Maria de Maeztu distinction which recognizes our leadership and research impact. Our main lines of research, as well as the associated faculty members, can be found here: http://icc.ub.edu/research/research_areas
Description of the fellowship:
Researchers of all nationalities who have resided in Spain more than 12 months over the past three years can apply for this fellowship. The retaining programme will provide a three-year contract in accordance with employment legislation in force in Spain, pursuant to provisions regarding occupational health and safety and social security, with access to suitable resources, equipment and facilities.
Salary:please refer to this document.
Requirementsfor candidates:
Researchersof any nationality are eligible for the Junior Leader programme. In order toget accepted, candidates must meet the following requirements:
·Experience: They should have earned their doctoral degree three to six years prior to the deadline for applications. For such purposes, candidates must have obtained their doctoral degree between 2 October 2014 and 2 October 2011. For more details refer to this document.
·Geographic mobility: Candidates must have resided or carried out their main activity (work, studies, etc.) in Spain for more than 12 months in the 3 years immediately prior to the call deadline. Short stays such as holidays will not be taken into account.
·For more information about the call please refer to this document.
Applications:
All applications must be completed online at: https://www.juniorleaderlacaixa.org
Concerned about the under representation of women in the fields of sciences of the cosmos, the ICCUB strongly encourages young women to apply.
The total economical grant is 11.160€. This total amount will be distributed as follows:
- Two grants for the total amount of the enrollment, up to a maximum of 60 credits enrolled for the first time, at the corresponding price for community students.
- Four grants for the amount of 50% of the enrollment, up to a maximum of 60 credits enrolled for the first time, at the corresponding price for community students.
Requirements for candidates:
Grants can be requested by students who have been accepted to the Master in Astrophysics, Particle Physics and Cosmology in the school year 2017-2018 before the deadline and keep the pre-enrollment until the enrollment.
Selection criteria:
- Weighted average note, 6/10
- Suitability of the CV to the master, 3/10
- Equitable distribution of the grant between the two modalities of the master's degree. In the case of tie, gender parity criteria will apply, 1/10.
Applications: http://www.ub.edu/beques/grausimasters/altres_ajuts/master_astrofisica/03_sollicitud.html
To cover several positions in our team, we are looking for:
- People motivated to work in a multidisciplinary environment in an outstanding project at an international level.
- Finished degree (or just pending final project) in engineering (preferably software/computing), mathematics, physics or similar.
- Java programming. Python will be a plus.
- Expertise in Linux. Shell scripting will be a plus.
- Good English level (at least B2).
- For one of the positions: Hadoop, Spark, Big Data and Data Mining will be a plus.
- For one of the positions: Linux administration will be a plus.
We offer:
- Work in an European cornerstone research project (ESA).
- Depending on the applicant's profile, tasks on: programming, analysis and data interpretation, development of new science or statistics algorithms, support/administration of virtualized computing systems...
- Possibility to get promoted and to reach other projects.
- Full-time contract (reduced-time is also possible).
- Flexible schedule.
************ CATALÀ ***********
L'Equip Gaia de la Universitat de Barcelona (IEEC - ICCUB) ha contribuït des dels seus inicis al desenvolupament del concepte i disseny de la missió Gaia de l'Agència Espacial Europea (ESA). El nostre equip està realitzant importants contribucions amb simulacions i processaments de dades astromètriques i fotomètriques per a la missió. L'equip està format per personal expert en ciència, enginyeria, tecnologia i anàlisi de dades per desenvolupar i operar software de processament de grans volums de dades, validació i explotació a nivell científic. El nostre equip és responsable del Centre de Processament de dades de Barcelona, allotjat al supercomputador Marenostrum.
Busquem, per cobrir diverses places a l'equip:- Gent motivada per treballar en un entorn multidisciplinar en un projecte punter a nivell internacional.
- Titulació finalitzada (o pendent tant sols de treball final) en enginyeria (preferiblement informàtica), matemàtiques, física o similars.
- Programació en Java. Es valoraran coneixements de Python.
- Experiència en entorns Linux. Es valoraran coneixements de shell scripting.
- Bon nivell d'anglès (mínim B2).
- Per una de les places es valoraran coneixements o experiència en Hadoop, Spark, Big Data i Data Mining.
- Per una de les places es valoraran coneixements o experiència en administració Linux.
Oferim:
- Treball en un projecte punter de recerca a nivell europeu (ESA).
- Segons perfil, tasques de: programació, anàlisi i interpretació de dades, desenvolupament de nous algoritmes científics o estadístics, suport/administració de sistemes de computació virtualitzats...
- Possibilitat de promoció i d'ampliació a altres projectes.
- Contracte a jornada completa (possibilitat de jornada reduïda).
- Horari flexible.
One PhD studentship is open at the Institute of Cosmos Sciences at University of Barcelona (ICCUB). It is funded by the ERC Advanced Grant of Prof Roberto Emparan "A New Strategy for Gravity and Black Holes" (ERC-2015-AdG 692951 GravBHs).
The successful applicant will work directly with Prof Emparan on novel theoretical approaches to black hole physics and gravity. They will be members of a very active group doing research on many areas of gravitational theory, string theory and cosmology.
Candidates must hold an MSc or equivalent in a field that is closely related to theoretical physics, with excellent performance in General Relativity.
The start date is expected to be October 2017. The position will be funded for up to 4 years, and includes travel money.
Applications must be made online at the link provided above, and will contain a CV and at least two reference letters. Applications by any other means will not be considered.
See http://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/204480_en.html for information about the objectives of the ERC project that funds this position
L'Equip Gaia de la Universitat de Barcelona (IEEC - ICCUB) ha contribuït des dels seus inicis al desenvolupament del concepte i disseny de la missió Gaia del'Agència Espacial Europea (ESA). El nostre equip està realitzant importants contribucions amb simulacions, processaments astromètrics i fotomètrics per a la missió. L'equip està format per científics i enginyers que desenvolupen el software per al processament de grans volums de dades, validació i explotació a nivell científic. El nostre equip és responsable del Centre de Processament de dades de Barcelona, allotjat al supercomputador Marenostrum.
Tasques a realitzar:
- Execució del sistema de processat de dades de Gaia a Barcelona.
- Anàlisi i documentació dels resultats de l'esmentat sistema.
- Detectar i depurar eventuals problemes i limitacions en el sistema.
- Implementar proves unitàries en els mòduls del sistema.
Requisits:
- Programació en Java (preferiblement), C/C++ o Python.
- Coneixements dels conceptes de programació orientada a objectes.
- Experiència en entorns Linux i shell scripting.
- Nivell alt d'anglès (mínim B2).
- Capacitat de treball en equip.
Oferim:
- Treball en un projecte punter de recerca a nivell europeu (ESA).
- Possibilitat de promoció.
- Horari flexible.
- Jornada completa
The ICCUB is offering 20 PhD projects within INPhINIT program of "la Caixa" Foundation. INPhINIT will select 57 young researchers of all nationalities for a three year program to complete a PhD in one of the centers that has received a distictive Severo Ochoa or Maria de Maeztu award.
Requirements for candidates:
- At the time of recruitment (start date of the contract with the Research Centre), candidates must be in the first four years (full-time equivalent research experience) of their research careers and not yet have been awarded a doctoral degree.
- Candidates must not have resided or carried out their main activity (work, studies, etc.) in Spain for more than 12 months in the 3 years immediately prior to the recruitment date. Short stays such as holidays will not be taken into account.
More information about requirements
The projects offered by ICCUB are:
- Active Galactic Nuclei in Merging Galaxies: A Theoretical Approach [+]
Group Leader: Josep Maria Solanes Majúa
http://icc.ub.edu/people/68Research Project Description
Supermassive black holes (SMBH) have been detected in the centers of most nearby large galaxies. Galaxies today are not only the products of billions of years of hierarchical structure build up, but also billions of years of SMBH activity as active galactic nuclei (AGN) are thought to be the generic outcome of galaxy-galaxy mergers. In this context, detection of AGN pairs should be relatively common. Observationally, however, dual AGNs are scant, being just a few percent of all AGNs. In this PhD thesis, the candidate will investigate the triggering of AGN activity in merging galaxies via a suite of high-resolution hydrodynamical simulations. (S)He will follow the dynamics of the mergers and trace all processes related to star formation and the accretion of baryons onto the SMBHs, exploring AGN activity across a wide range of relevant conditions and testing when the two AGNs are simultaneously active and for how long, in an attempt to derive constraints for the dual AGN fraction detectable through imaging and spectroscopy.
The thesis is part of a research project that we are about to start at the ICCUB in close collaboration with researchers from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucia (IAA) and the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), a Severo Ochoa Center of Excellence. This joint effort, has been recently awarded funding by the Spanish Programa Estatal de Fomento de la Investigación Científica y Técnica de Excelencia over the period 2017-19. The ICCUB project aims using state-of-the-art computer simulations of galaxy interactions and mergers to capture much of the important physics of the processes involved on timescales affordable to study, thus providing a valid reference against which to compare observational data. In short, we are offering the opportunity to participate in a multidisciplinary endeavor that will allow students to acquire advanced academic training in diverse fields, from theoretical astrophysics to high-performance computing.
Job Position Description
The PhD candidate will have first to familiarise with the numerical tools and high-resolution collisionless simulations developed by our group, and then contribute to the implementation of the hydrodynamic modeling of the astrophysical dissipative processes related to the gas cooling, star formation, and feedback in galaxies that have a direct bearing on the feeding of their central SMBHs during a binary merger. (S)He will then perform and analyze a massive suite of numerical simulations of major galaxy mergers, focusing on the separations and timescales for dual AGN activity. On a latter stage, the candidate is also expected to contribute to the extension of the implementation of the evolutionary equations for baryons to forming galaxy groups, in which galaxies experience multiple collisions and mergers with other group companions, as well as strong interactions with the intragroup environment. The goal of this phase would be to build on the knowledge of the formation scenario of first-ranked objects in galaxy aggregations.
In order to succeed in his/her task, the candidate will have to deal with numerical simulations that include a dark matter, a stellar, and a multi-phase gaseous component in a fully self-consistent manner, and with sufficient resolution to minimize two-body heating, angular momentum loses, and alterations of the radiative cooling efficiency. In this context, our group has regular access to massive parallel supercomputers and, in particular, unrestricted access to the computing infrastructures of the IAA and IAC, each one of these with hundreds of CPUs available. Thanks to this, the PhD student will have sufficient computing power guaranteed at all times to carry out the numerical simulations required by the thesis.
The PhD candidate will be expected to carry part of his/her work at both the IAA and the IAC. We encourage individuals with good analytical/research skills and are interested in acquiring, a high degree of computer literacy to apply.
- Dark Matter Constraints [+]
Group Leader: Licia Verde
http://icc.ub.edu/people/99Research Project
This project will investigate current and future constraints on dark matter (DM) models alternative to the cold dark matter scenario. Promising DM models include self-interacting DM (where the dark sector mirrors baryonic physics), decaying/annihilating DM (where DM is comprised by particles with a lifetime ~< than the current lifetime of the Universe), a string theory inspired model where the DM is made of axions with lifetime << than the lifetime of the Universe, decaying into particles of smaller mass in a series of steps until they decay into radiation), fuzzy dark matter, and the recently popular model in which primordial black holes of 10-50 solar masses make up the dark matter.
During the doctorate, the student will study models available in literature and investigate theirs observational consequences.
In particular, the effects of such models to the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) and the galaxy power spectrum.
Possible publications:
- Review models that passed observational tests in the last few years, and update constraints with the most current data available from BOSS+Planck;
- Investigate novel methodologies for constraining DM models, using combinations of surveys and newly developed techniques (e.g. Clustering-based redshift estimation for using radio continuum surveys in a tomographic way; using Intensity Mapping surveys);
- Forecast and prepare a pipeline for future experiments, including next generation CMB (Stage-IV), DESIEuclidSKA and dark ages 21cm intensity mapping surveys.
- The group is composed by faculty member Licia Verde, Raul Jimenez, postdocs Antonio Cuesta, Fergus Simpson, Alvise Raccanelli and graduate students Jose Luis Bernal, Nicola Bellomo.
Job position description:
This is a PhD project. It will involve research on the frontier of knowledge where scientific output in the form of peer-reviewed articles is the expected outcome. The student will learn advanced techniques to describe the clustering of large-scale structure and then will have to use these to discover how to connect it to the processes in nature that rule the universe, from pre-BigBang, inflation, modifications of gravity and dark energy. This is a mostly theoretical project that requires excellent knowledge of cosmology, advanced mathematics and theoretical physics at the master level. The student will learn advanced techniques in cosmology both numerical and analytical as well as statistical.
Prerequisites: master degree in physics or equivalent, a cosmology course or astronomy, programming skills, text editor skills (latex).
Expectations:
- work effectively towards completion of the degree in a timely manner.
- devote full time and effort towards completing degree requirements and the required work towards the PhD.
- learn the existing theories, practices and research methods of the discipline and to apply these.
- communicate regularly with faculty advisors providing updates on the student’s progress within the program and updates on results of research activities.
- assume the highest integrity and maintain ethical standards in all aspects of the student’s work, especially in the tasks of collecting, analyzing, and presenting research data.
- where applicable, to maintain detailed, organized and accurate records of the work done.
- attend and participate in appropriate meetings, colloquia, seminars and group discussions that are part of the educational program, and the student should submit all relevant research results that are ready for publication in a timely manner.
- DESI survey [+]
Group Leader: Licia Verde
http://icc.ub.edu/people/99Research Project
The group is part of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Survey (DESI). DESI will measure the effect of dark energy on the expansion of the universe. It will obtain optical spectra for tens of millions of galaxies and quasars, constructing a 3-dimensional map of the Universe up to z=3.
DESI will study baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) and the growth of structure through redshift-space distortions (RSD) with a wide-area galaxy and quasar redshift survey.
DESI will be conducted on the Mayall 4-meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory starting in 2018.
The student will participate in the preparation for and cosmological interpretation and exploitation of the data.
The group is composed by faculty members Licia Verde, Raul Jimenez, postdocs Antonio Cuesta, Fergus Simpson, Alvise Raccanelli and graduate students Jose Luis Bernal, Nicola Bellomo.
Job position description
This is a PhD project. It will involve research on the frontier of knowledge. Scientific output in the form of peer-reviewed articles is the expected outcome. At least three published articles are expected for the PhD degree to be awarded. The student will learn advanced techniques to describe the clustering of large scale structure and will have to use these to discover how to connect it to the theory. The student will learn advanced techniques in cosmology both numerical and analytical as well as statistical.
Prerequisites: master degree in physics or equivalent, a cosmology course or astronomy, programming skills, text editor skills (latex).
Expectations:
- work effectively towards completion of the degree in a timely manner.
- devote full time and effort towards completing degree requirements and the required work towards the PhD.
- learn the existing theories, practices and research methods of the discipline and to apply them.
- communicate regularly with faculty advisors providing updates on the student’s progress within the program and updates on results of research activities.
- assume the highest integrity and maintain ethical standards in all aspects of the student’s work, especially in the tasks of collecting, analyzing, and presenting research data.
- where applicable, to maintain detailed, organized and accurate records of the work done.
- attend and participate in appropriate meetings, colloquia, seminars and group discussions that are part of the educational program, and the student should submit all relevant research results that are ready for publication in a timely manner.
- Detection Classification for Gaia [+]
Group Leader: Javier Castañeda Pons
http://icc.ub.edu/people/16Research Project Description
Gaia is an astrometric space mission of the European Space Agency (ESA). The mission will measure the positions, motions and parallaxes of more than 1 billion stars of our Galaxy up to the 20th magnitude. The data produced during the mission will require more than a Petabyte. Just the first Gaia Data Release (GDR1) with less than a fifth of the final expected data included more than 40TB data and 60 billion observations. In addition, the latest estimations predict that Gaia data processing will require more than 1021 flops.
Within the Gaia processing, the Intermediate Data Updating (IDU) is the most demanding system in data volume and processing power. IDU aims to provide an updated Cross-Match table between each observation and a source in the Gaia catalogue. Without this task all the Gaia processing would not work correctly.
The Gaia on board detection software was build to detect point like sources and it is in principle capable of autonomously discriminating stars from false detections i.e. cosmic rays. However, during Gaia commissioning, several kinds of spurious detections and related issues were detected, unfortunately in much larger quantities than expected.
The main problem with the spurious detections arises from the fact that each of them may lead to the creation of a new source in the Cross-Match. Therefore, the goal of the Detection Classifier (IDU-DC) task is to flag and remove these detections to avoid the creation of unnecessary new sources in the catalogue. In other words, IDU-DC results will prevent that spurious sources are created in the Cross-Match and consequently that spurious sources enter other calibration pipelines from other downstream processes and finally in the catalogues published to the global scientific community. In this context the IDU-DC task, is crucial as it must detect all the spurious observations.
The fellow would work within the Gaia group, which is part of the ICCUB-IEEC institute. Specifically, in the IDU-DC task.
Job Position Description
List of desirable skills for the candidates:
- Java/Python/C++/R: All the data processing software in DPAC is written in Java. A good understanding of Object Oriented programming languages is therefore critical.
- Applied Math and Algorithms: The candidate should have a solid understanding of algorithm theory. Previous experience with relevant algorithms such as k-means, etc. will be beneficial.
- Probability and Statistics: A firm understanding of Probability and Statistics is expected. The candidate should be able to use statistics as a model evaluation metric: confusion matrices, receiver-operator curves, p-values, etc.
- Expertise in Unix: The candidate should have good experience with all of the most common Unix tools such as: cat, grep, etc.
- Advanced Signal Processing techniques: Feature extraction is one of the most important parts of machine-learning. The candidate is expected to know advanced signal processing algorithms such as wavelets, etc.
- Distributed Computing: The candidate should have a good understanding of the computational costs of different algorithms and how these can be distributed efficiently.
- Code optimization: Due to the large volumes of data and records the code should run efficiently. Data access, equalization and distribution is also an issue which must be tackled by the candidate.
- Other valuable skills:
- All the project documentation is written in LaTeX. Therefore, previous knowledge is desirable.
- DPAC uses Apache Subversion (SVN) as the working repository. Prior experience will be a valuable asset for the candidate.
Roles and responsibilities of the candidate:
- The candidate will be responsible for the development of the IDU-DC system within DPAC.
- The DC algorithm development, documentation, implementation, testing and integration.
- The candidate will be responsible to write the corresponding papers in A&A and other relevant journals detailing to the scientific community how the IDU-DC works.
- Determination of stellar astrophysical parameters using J-PLUS photometry [+]
Group Leader: Josep Manel Carrasco Martínez
http://icc.ub.edu/people/153Research Project Description
The Gaia group at the Institute of Cosmic Sciences (ICCUB) has been working in the space sector since the satellite Hipparcos (1989-1993). Gaia's main goal is to make the largest, most precise 3D map of our Galaxy by surveying a billion stars with an unprecedented precision in position (of the order of microarcsecond) and motion. The age and composition of these stars will also be obtained thanks to photometric measurements. Gaia will be able to clarify the structure, formation and evolution of our Galaxy, and will impact every field of astrophysics (including stellar evolution, dark matter and general relativity). Nowadays, our team is leading the development of the Gaia Archive, the initial processing and the photometric data treatment. Our team consists of around 30 scientists and engineers, ranging from software development and data management to monitoring and scientific validation. Our group received the prize “Ciutat de Barcelona 2013.” Since the inception of the Gaia mission, we have contributed in the concept and design. In particular, our set of proposed photometric filters was finally accepted as the baseline for the Gaia photometric instrument in 2005. Some of these photometric passbands proposed for Gaia have been recently added to the Javalambre Observatory in Teruel for their J-PAS/J-PLUS projects.
The Javalambre-Photometric Local Universe Survey, J-PLUS, is a photometric sky survey of 8500 deg2 visible from Javalambre Observatory, using a set of 12 broad, intermediate and narrow band filters. The filter set was specifically aimed at the characterization of stars in our Galaxy. J-PLUS will create a unique catalogue of stars (to an unprecedented combination of depth and survey area), being able to fit the spectra of all the stars observed with their physical parameters (effective temperature, gravity and metallicity). Photometry with J-PLUS and kinematics and parallaxes from Gaia will allow the study of the structure of the galactic thick disk and halo.
Job Position Description
Role and responsibilities:
The role of the candidate is to exploit the knowledge of the team in the photometric passbands proposed for Gaia and currently installed in J-PLUS survey to derive the astrophysical parameters of the observed stars. This task will imply establishing a collaboration with Javalambre Observatory to retrieve observed photometry and becoming familiar with the instrumentation installed in J-PLUS to understand the behaviour of the data. Once the instrumental effects are removed from the observations, the cleaned data needs to be scientifically analysed and methods to classify and parameterise the stars in the sample (deriving their temperatures, gravities, metallicities, alpha abundances if possible, interstellar absorption, …) have to be established. The candidate will also be in charge of documenting all the work done and submitting publications to astronomical refereed magazines (like Astronomy & Astrophysics and similar) and presenting the results at some conferences and meetings.
Desired skills of the candidate:
A candidate with a degree in astronomy and physics is desired. Knowledge of telescopes and CCD instrumentation, stellar physics and galaxies is also appreciated. The work will be done using Linux environment. Existing stellar parameterisation prototypes in the team are currently coded in Fortran. For the analysis of the J-PLUS images the candidate will have to use reduction pipelines in IRAF, Sextractor and AstroPy (Python). The project documentation will be written in LaTeX. To establish the methodology, deriving a parameterisation algorithm from photometry skills in statistical methods, chi-squared minimisation, bayesian methods and/or neural networks would be appreciated.
- Fast electronics for medical imaging and particle detection [+]
Group Leader: David Gascón Fora
http://icc.ub.edu/people/30Research Project
The experimental particle physics (EHEP) research team in the Universitat de Barcelona has contributed to heavy flavour experiments during the last 15 years. During this time, it has participated in the HERA-B experiment at DESY (Hamburg, Germany), the BaBar experiment at SLAC (Stanford, EE. UU.) and, currently, the team is member of the LHCb collaboration at CERN (Geneva, Switzerland). Besides its contributions to the physics program of these experiments, the group has developed a significant expertise in the design, manufacturing and operation of custom electronics and microelectronics for the readout of photo-detectors. The technology developed for those research projects is at the forefront of today’s available solutions.
It is important to remark, the creation in 2013 of the SiUB (http://siub.ub.edu) instrumentation service in the Physics Faculty of the University of Barcelona (UB), for which Dr. David Gascón is the technical director. The mission of this instrumentation service is to transfer technology developed through the research projects to the society.
The technology developed for the particle physics experiments has been proved to be disruptive for Positron Emission Tomography (PET) in the medical imaging field. Current PET technology is based on scintillating crystals. However, there is an intrinsic limit in the time resolution that can be achieved by scintillation in crystals. Several R&D projects are studying prompt light emission mechanisms to overcome this limitation, among them we have identified two promising options: Cherenkov light emission in crystals and fast scintillation (2.2 ns decay time) and Cherenkov emission in Liquid Xenon. New advances are required in photo-detector and electronics in order to exploit prompt light emission, aiming for an overall Single Photon Time Resolution (SPTR) in the order of few tens of pico-seconds (ps) and enhanced UV sensitivity.
Job position description:
The candidate will join the group as a fellow researcher in the Integrated Circuit (IC) design field. This position will focus on developing a module based on analogue light sensors. Sensors, front-end electronics, digitization and signal processing will be developed to produce a scalable module to overcome the limitations of the current PET technology. The module will be also applied to future high luminosity colliders, where ps time resolution is required for time tagging of particle interactions.
She/he will participate in all phases of IC design flow (design, simulation, layout and verification) and characterization of the modules in lab test benches, particle detectors and hospitals. The candidate will work in a multidisciplinary environment involving also scientists and international researchers. In particular, the candidate will work in the framework of a collaboration established between CERN and ICCUB to develop a new generation of ultra-fast systems based on a 65 nm CMOS technology. New vertical 3D integration technologies will be also studied. The ultimate goal would be to develop a digital silicon photomultiplier based on Single Photon Avalanche Detectors with a SPTR as good as 30 ps.
The requisites of the candidate are knowledge and experience in:
- Engineering degree or similar (preferably Electronics Engineer)
- IC design (schematic, simulation, layout and verification)
- Temporal stays at CERN will be required to interact with other engineers participating in this project
If would also be desirable to have knowledge in:
IC testing, PCB design and layout and SW development Data analysis for IC verification and characterization Medical imaging Radiation detectors - Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs): a theoretical and observational approach [+]
Group Leader: Josep M. Paredes
http://icc.ub.edu/people/50Research Project
FRBs are transient events of ms-duration whose nature and origin remain a mystery. Propagation through the intergalactic medium causes large time dispersion measurements, implying an extragalactic origin. The extremely short durations and the brightness temperatures associated suggest a coherent origin of the radiation. 17 bursts have been reported up to now and only one case is known to repeat suggesting different types of FRBs. Several models have been proposed to explain these events, based on the interactions of relativistic outflows with small perturbations (Romero et al. 2016) or invoking catastrophic events with massive reconnection events (Falcke & Rezzolla 2014; Liu et al. 2016).
In this PhD project, the candidate will develop these models and apply them to different scenarios such as: 1) Relativistic blobs ejected in the merger of a neutron star binary or magnetized black hole binaries; 2) Minijets in AGNs or blazars produced by dissipation of magnetic energy in a larger jet. The expected results of this study, such as the existence of possible counterparts at different wavelengths, can be put to the test through observations carried out by the hosting group (who has expertise in multiwavelength observations), giving to the candidate a unique opportunity to encompass in a single project all major steps of a scientific research from the theoretical development of a predictive model to prediction testing through the latest observational capabilities.
The group is composed of 15 researchers that combine observations and theory to understand the physics of astrophysical outflows at different scales, from stellar-mass systems to super massive BHs. The work on FRBs is focused on developing theoretical models (led by Prof. Romero, Univ. La Plata) and carrying out very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) observations to determine their exact location, and optical and VHE observations with MAGIC to explore the possible afterglow (led by Prof. Paredes, UB).
Job position description:
The candidate must have background knowledge in relativistic astrophysics and, preferably, also in plasma physics. The job will require both analytical and numerical calculations of radiative processes in extreme physical conditions. Knowledge of general relativity is also desirable since the context of some potential sources involves gravitational radiation. The successful candidate is expected to strongly interact with the rest of the group through discussions, participation in seminars, and collaborations. Availability for traveling for periods of several weeks is indispensable, since strong interaction with the group led by Prof. Romero in Argentina is expected.
The duties of the job will include taking formal courses to complete the candidate’s academic formation in related subjects. The work offered will imply to fulfill all formal requirements for getting the PhD degree from the University of Barcelona, including writing the PhD Thesis within the period of the position.
- FPGA development for high speed cost-effective space applications [+]
Group Leader: Joan Mauricio Ferré
http://icc.ub.edu/people/326Research Project
The Institut de Ciències del Cosmos (ICC) is a research institute at Universitat de Barcelona. Last year the institute was granted the MINECO’s excellence María de Maeztu award. The ICCUB is one of a handful institutes in the World fully dedicated to cosmology physics and high energy physics at the same level. Created on 2006, the ICCUB pays special attention to the synergies arising from a variety of connected scientific areas of astrophysics, nuclear and particle physics, gravitation, space science and other fields of mathematics, electronics and instrumentation. The ICCUB has a key role in various projects of ESA and CERN, noting GAIA, Solar Orbiter or LHCb. In addition to leading key tasks of scientific exploitation, the institute has participated in the development of instrumentation for this type of projects. Therefore, the ICCUB has a long experience in the development of reading and processing front-end electronics for space and for other environments where radiation hardness is required. Such electronics include the design of mixed application specific integrated circuits (ASIC), real-time processing (FPGA, DSP, microprocessor) and acquisition, control and power electronics.
Taking advantage of the knowledge gained in the space missions, ICCUB is helping develop a nanosatellite. Nanosatellites are cost effective solution for pollution measurement, smart-city information gathering, biosphere study, agriculture… The engineering group is focused on building a software framework for FPGAs that provides a base set of capabilities, while maintaining a reduced cost and footprint. One line of research is to minimize the effects of space radiation of FPGAs to reduce the cost of the processing unit, instead of using expensive radiation hardened commercial FPGAs available. The second line of research is how to process data in real time at the nanosatellite so the amount of data required to be sent down to earth is reduced.
Job position description:
The candidate will work on implementation of real-time systems for on board processing in space missions and for scientific instrumentation. Particularly back-end (data acquisition) and control systems for complex scientific instrumentation (space missions, particle detectors, etc) and related industrial applications. She/he will participate in all phases of FPGA design Flow (Synthesis, Place & Route, and Timing Closure). She/he will work in bringing-up and validate FPGAs and cards in the lab. He/she will develop real time processing in dedicated HW (ARM, GPU, DSP, etc). The candidate will work with the data and electronics engineering services of the ICCUB in a multidisciplinary environment involving also ICCUB scientists and international researchers. Those teams have developed instrumentation for space missions, astronomic observatories and particle detectors in high energy physics colliders.
The requisites of the candidate are knowledge and experience in:
- Engineering degree or similar (preferably Electronics Engineer) with good knowledge on FPGAs and real time processors.
- Implementation and verification of complex products that use FPGAs, ASICs and other real time processor (ARM, GPU, DSP, etc).
- Micro architecture and design partition within the ASIC/FPGA.
- Implementation of design blocks using Verilog / System Verilog.
- Knowledge of HW/SW co-design
- Temporal stays at CERN will be required to interact with other engineers.
- Fundamental Physics from the Non-Gaussian Sky [+]
Group Leader: Raul Jimenez
http://icc.ub.edu/people/98Research Project Description
Cosmology offers a unique window into the laws of nature. The whole evolution of the Universe spans the energy range from the Planck mass down to sub-eV physics. Imprints of the very high energy events in the Universe (at the Planck scale) are encoded in the statistical distribution of large-scale structure. By extracting this information one can learn about the fundamental laws of physics at energy scales that will never be reached in accelerators on Earth. We can then learn about how the quantum and gravity world interact with each other. However, extracting this information is not easy and this project aims at building the tools to extract information about the fundamental laws of nature by exploiting the non-Gaussian nature of the observed sky. Our group has developed a principled approach to deal with non-Gaussianity in Cosmology and the goal of this PhD project is to further develop the approach to the point that it can be successfully applied to data.
The group is composed by faculty member Licia Verde, Raul Jimenez, postdocs Antonio Cuesta, Fergus Simpson, Alvise Raccanelli and graduate students Jose Luis Bernal, Nicola Bellomo.
Job Position Description
This is a PhD project. It will involve research on the frontier of knowledge where scientific output in the form of peer-reviewed articles is the expected outcome. At least three published articles are expected for the PhD degree to be awarded. The student will learn advanced techniques to describe the clustering of large-scale structure and then will have to use these to discover how to connect it to the processes in nature that rule the universe, from pre-BigBang, inflation, modifications of gravity and dark energy. This is a mostly theoretical project that requires excellent knowledge of cosmology, advanced mathematics and theoretical physics at the master level. The student will learn advanced techniques in cosmology both numerical and analytical as well as statistical.Prerequisites: master degree in physics or equivalent, a cosmology course or astronomy, programming skills, text editor skills (latex).
Expectations:
- work effectively towards completion of the degree in a timely manner.
- devote full time and effort towards completing degree requirements and the required work towards the PhD.
- learn the existing theories, practices and research methods of the discipline and to apply these
- communicate regularly with faculty advisors providing updates on the student’s progress within the program and updates on results of research activities.
- assume the highest integrity and maintain ethical standards in all aspects of the student’s work, especially in the tasks of collecting, analyzing, and presenting research data.
- where applicable, to maintain detailed, organized and accurate records of the work done.
- attend and participate in appropriate meetings, colloquia, seminars and group discussions that are part of the educational program, and the student should submit all relevant research results that are ready for publication in a timely manner.
- Gaia Alerts follow-up from Montsec Observatory [+]
Group Leader: Josep Manel Carrasco Martínez
http://icc.ub.edu/people/153Research Project Description
The Gaia group at the Institute of Cosmic Sciences (ICCUB) works in the space sector since the satellite Hipparcos (1989-1993). Gaia main goal is to make the largest, most precise 3D map of our Galaxy by surveying a billion stars with an unprecedented precision in position (of the order of microarcsecond) and motion. Their age and composition will also be obtained thanks to photometric measurements. Gaia will be able to clarify the structure, formation and evolution of our Galaxy, and will impact on every field of astrophysics (including stellar evolution, dark matter and general relativity). Our group has contributed since its inception in the concept of the Gaia mission and its design. In particular, our set of proposed photometric passbands was finally accepted as baseline for the mission in 2005. Some of these photometric passbands proposed for Gaia have been recently added also to the Javalambre Observatory in Teruel for their J-PAS/J-PLUS projects. Nowadays, our team is leading the development of the Gaia Archive, the initial processing and the photometric data treatment. Our team consists of around 30 scientists and engineers, ranging from software development to data management, as its monitoring and scientific validation. The group received the prize “Ciutat de Barcelona 2013”.
Gaia was launched in 2013 by the European Space Agency. Since then, a monitoring of the brightness of all sources in the sky is being driven. When some of these sources suddenly increase its brightness, an alert is triggered to the astronomical community to follow-up the evolution of this object. The first alert was issued in August 2014. Our team is also contributing to this Gaia Alerts follow-up programme using Joan Oró Telescope at Montsec Observatory (Sant Esteve de la Sarga, Lleida). With this programme we have been observing several supernovae explosions, variable stars and peculiar microlensing events in collaboration with several international teams.
Jop Position Description
The role of the candidate is to continue with the Gaia Alerts follow-up programme from Montsec Observatory, trying to go deeper into the study of some specific type of objects (microlensing events, supernovae, variable stars, …) observed with our telescope. Possible submission of observational proposals to other instruments to complement the photometric measurements from Joan Oró Telescope to fully understand the behaviour and nature of the alert can also be needed. A preliminary work reading bibliography to better understand the current status in the field and selection of the most interesting niches accessible with our data need to be done by the candidate. The definition of a fully automatic procedure to retrieve the list of published alerts, programming the observations for every night, reducing the observations (cleaning them from instrumental effects), and uploading the resulting measurements into the Cambridge Gaia Alerts interface to be shared with all the community is desired to be established. Collaboration with other teams is needed and the candidate will be in charge of establishing a closer relationship with them, specially those interested in the type of alerts accessible from Montsec Observatory. The candidate will also be in charge of documenting all the work done and submit publications to astronomical refereed magazines (like Astronomy & Astrophysics and similar) and immediate Astronomical Telegram's reporting interesting discoveries with the shortest possible delay. Presentation of the results to some conferences and meetings is foreseen.
A candidate with formation in astronomy and physics is desired. Knowledge in telescopes and CCD instrumentation, stellar evolution and microlensing events is also appreciated. The work will be done using Linux environment. For the analysis of the Joan Oró images the candidate have to use reduction pipelines in IRAF, Sextractor and AstroPy (Python). The project documentation will be written in LaTeX.
- Gaia Detection of Ultra Faint Dwarf Galaxies in the halo as probes for cosmological models[+]
Group Leader: Francesca Figueras
http://icc.ub.edu/people/26Research Project
Our Galaxy, the Milky Way, is our place in the Universe and our natural cosmological laboratory. Here we propose to exploit the Gaia data (ESA, 2016-2020) to study a key astrophysical process that drive the evolution of our Galaxy and of galaxies in general, that is the assemblage of the halo. Several galaxies with very low luminosity and surface brightness, dominated by dark matter, called “Ultra Faint Dwarf Galaxies” (UFDGs), have been found during last decade in the halo of the Milky Way. Its detection is extremely relevant for the so-called “missing satellite problem”, the dramatic discrepancy between the observed number of galaxy satellites and the large number predicted by the state-of-the-art cosmological Λ Cold Dark Matter (CDM) simulations. Up to now, its detection is limited to searches of over-densities in the sky in photometric surveys and to the specific sky areas covered. The Gaia catalogue has full sky coverage and, for the first time, extremely accurate stellar kinematics that can be added to the search algorithms. With this project we aim to obtain a new and unbiased census of UFDGs in the Milky Way halo to assess on solid grounds the discrepancy between the observations and predictions.
To detect UFDGs, the candidate will start by using the algorithms designed by us (see Antoja et al., 2015). For the first time, the Wavelet Transforms is used to identify significant peaks in the combined space of sky positions and proper motions. She/he will use a tessellation method at CSUC and Mare Nostrum to run the algorithm using the 2nd Gaia Data Release (Q4-2017). Based on the list of new UFDGs found, we expect to assess the consequences for the missing satellite problem early in 2018. In a second step, new algorithms will be developed and applied both to real Gaia data and to high-resolution hydrodynamic N-body simulations of MW-like type galaxies (Eagle, Garrotxa, ..)
Job position description:
We will provide to the candidate the skills needed to deal with the scientific exploitation of Gaia. She/he will be a member of the Gaia GREAT European network, in close connection with the Gaia Challenge WG. That will provide to the candidate training in a number of key areas, focused on exploiting advanced database technologies to better facilitate the analysis and interpretation of Gaia's immense datasets.
List of desirable skill sets for the candidates:
- Basic concepts on Astrometry from Space, Galactic Astronomy and Cosmology
- Probability and Statistics: multivariate data Analysis and advanced signal processing
- Programming languages (Python, C++ and R) and LaTex editor. Unix as computer operating system. Big data, distributed Computing and code optimization
The candidate will benefit from all the regular Astrophysics, Cosmology and Data Mining training courses at the ICCUB. Also from specific courses on scientific communication and outreach. She/he will be responsible to write the corresponding papers in referred papers (ApJ, MNRAS,…). The research experience and transferable skills gained will prepare the applicant not only for academy but also, if desired, for a research employment in other fields and even sectors. The applicant will strongly develop problem solving abilities, technical skills on big data, for sure useful in a broader employment market of the current times (e.g. working as a data scientist).
- Galaxy dynamics with axion dark matter [+]
Group Leader: Jordi Miralda-Escudé
http://icc.ub.edu/people/95Research Project
The proposed research focuses on investigating the nature of the dark matter, which comprises about 84% of all the matter in our Universe according to the most recent measurements from the Cosmic Background Radiation fluctuations. Two approaches are proposed: in the first, the consequences of the presence of axions with a mass of the order of ~10^(-23) eV as a component of the dark matter will be studied. Axions of this mass should behave as quantum systems on galactic scales, and would exhibit phenomena that are familiar in atomic physics but on the scale of a galaxy. Specifically, the research may focus on the impact on dynamical relaxation of dark matter in galaxies if all or part of the dark matter is axions of this very low mass. Predictions from this model can be confronted with observations of stellar dynamics in dwarf galaxies, which are the ones most affected by the quantum effects of axion dark matter (see, e.g., the review by D. Marsh 2015).
A second approach would be to study various alternative observational techniques through which the nature of the dark matter can be probed. Some examples are the Lyman alpha forest, or absorption by neutral hydrogen in the intergalactic medium at high redshift, which can probe the power spectrum of fluctuations in the gas and is sensitive to the nature of the dark matter (e.g. Viel et al. 2006; Arinyo-i-Prats et al. 2015); and the study of orbital dynamics in the Milky Way and its dwarf galaxy companions with new data from GAIA and other observational data sets of fainter stars in dwarfs.
Job position description:
The fellow joining this research program would collaborate in all aspects of the research, and would be trained in the required techniques for numerical calculations, cosmological simulation analysis, or observational data analysis that are required. The proposed topic of the nature of the dark matter is fairly broad and the fellow would have freedom to develop the project in the direction that is most promising and appealing. Required skills are a strong background in fundamental physics and mathematics for numerical analysis.
- Open Clusters Studies in the Gaia era [+]
Group Leader: Carme Jordi
http://icc.ub.edu/people/38Research Project Description
The Gaia group at the Institute of Cosmic Sciences (ICCUB) is involved in the Gaia space mission since its conceptual and design phases. The team consists of around 30 people (scientists and engineers) ranging from software development to data management, as its monitoring and scientific validation. The group was awarded the “prize “Ciutat de Barcelona 2013”.
Gaia is a satellite by the European Space Agency, which main goal is to make the largest, most precise 3D map of our Galaxy by surveying a billion stars with an unprecedented precision (of the order of microarcsecond). This will allow the studying of the formation and posterior evolution of the Galaxy, the mapping of the dark matter, the comprehension of the stellar evolution, and so on. It is very well recognized that Gaia will impact all fields of astrophysics in the next decades.
Gaia Data Release 1, published on Sep 2016, contains results based on observations of the first 14 months of the operational phase. The mission will be operational for 5 years and due to the complexity of the data processing, the delivery of the data is foreseen in different stages. The second release, scheduled for 2017, will provide positions and motions for the billion stars.
Open clusters (OCs) are crucial for the understanding the Galactic disc (where the stars born) because, while field stars suffer from many perturbations in their orbits due to the Galactic potential and migrate radially, OCs keep more stable orbits and are better tracers of the chemical enrichment. However, the lack of a large number of OCs analyzed homogeneously hampers the investigations about chemical patterns and Galactocentric radial and vertical gradients, or an age-metallicity relation.
The project here aims to enlarge the sample of known OCs, the determination of their ages, total masses and Galactic positions (all from Gaia data) and their chemical abundances (from spectroscopic surveys like Gaia-ESO, OCCASO, and future WEAVE).
Job Position Description
The person will join the Gaia group for the scientific exploitation of the Gaia data (mainly releases 1 & 2) in what concerns OCs studies and their impact on the understanding of star formation history in the Galactic disc and so on the formation of the Galaxy as a whole.
The main responsibilities are:
- Develop statistical algorithms of data mining and machine learning to identify up-to-now unknown OCs, by identifying groups of common positions in the sky, common proper motions and common parallaxes based on Gaia data.
- Apply stellar evolution theories to derive ages, and masses from the OCs member stars using the Gaia photometric data for a sample of OCs selected on the basis of their height above the Galactic plane, their Galactocentric position and their age
- Characterize the abundances of several chemical species from ground based acquired data (this is thanks to the Gaia team access to Gaia-ESO, OCCASO and future WEAVE high-resolution spectroscopic surveys), using synthesis and equivalent width methods already available to the team (iSpec & GALA)
- Determine the orbits of OCs joining kinematic information from Gaia and from spectroscopic observations, and check the stability of the orbits based on their properties and the mass of the cluster to deduce the possible radial migration
- Derive trends or gradients of abundances for every specie as a function of height above the Galactic plane, Galactocentric position and age
- Compare results with predictions from chemo-dynamical models of the Galactic disc evolution, in collaboration with the several groups with which the Gaia team has well established links and that are experts of this topic (Obs of Bologna, Inst. Astrophys. Canary, Institut für Astrophysik Potsdam, etc)
- Write the corresponding papers in referred journals.
The desired skills for the candidate are:
- Master in “Astrophysics, Particle Physics and Cosmology” of ICCUB or equivalent
- Understanding of Probability and Statistics
- Expertise in software
- Primordial Black Holes from Inflation [+]
Group Leader: Jaume Garriga
http://icc.ub.edu/people/29Research Project Description
Inflation is the leading paradigm for explaining the observed homogeneity and isotropy of the universe, as well as the origin of the primordial perturbations which seeded structure formation. Current observations are in excellent agreement with inflationary predictions, but it would be very interesting to have additional evidence for this early phase of accelerated expansion.
The energy scale of inflation has not yet been determined from data. If it is a high energy scale, then we might be able to probe it through the observation of CMB polarization. But if the scale of inflation is well below the GUT scale, then this would not be possible.
The current project aims to explore a possible alternative probe of the scale of inflation which may be relevant for a wide class of models. Such models predict the production of primordial black holes, which might then have interesting observable effects on astrophysically relevant scales. For instance, in theories with a broken discrete symmetry, Hubble sized spherical domain walls may spontaneously nucleate during inflation. These objects are subsequently stretched by the inflationary expansion, resulting in a broad distribution of sizes. After inflation, such walls collapse to form black holes with a broad distribution of masses. Interestingly, the mass density distribution is peaked at a mass which is of order M sim M_P^4 H_i^{-3}, where M_P is the Planck mass and H_I is the expansion rate during inflation. Such peak mass ranges from 10^{10} g to 10^{15} solar masses, with the highest mass value corresponding to the lowest values of the scale of inflation. Depending on their abundance, such primordial black holes might significantly contribute to the dark matter density. Also, depending on the scale of inflation, they might be big enough to seed the supermassive black holes at the center of galaxies. Finally, they would lead to the formation of black hole binaries which might be observable by LIGO and upcoming probes of gravitational waves. The quantitative assessment of such possibilities will be the subject of the present project.
Job Position Description
The candidate will use the tools of General Relativity in order to study the dynamics of black hole formation, from inflationary relics such as domain walls or false vacuum bubbles. From the resulting mass distribution the candidate will study the prospects for observational detection. This will involve a detailed consideration of existing constraints on the model parameters (such as for instance, those concerned with CMB distortions), as well as accurate predictions for the expected event rates for binary coalescence, enabling a comparison with upcoming observations. A promising probe for this scenario might be the rate of events as a function of the binary mass ratio, since the latter is likely to be hierarchical and directly related to the black hole abundance relative to dark matter.
- Radiation in strongly coupled gauge theories [+]
Group Leader: Bartomeu Fiol
http://icc.ub.edu/people/135Research Project Description
Radiation of electromagnetic waves by charged particles is one of the cornerstones of electromagnetism, with deep conceptual implications and countless, everyday, practical applications. Nevertheless, radiation is not a phenomenon exclusive of electromagnetism. For instance, as the recent detection of gravitational waves by LIGO has spectacularly confirmed, massive objects can radiate gravitationally, and this phenomenon opens up a new window to explore the Universe. Given these precedents, it is natural to try to understand better the properties of radiation of massless quanta in the other fundamental forces of Nature, and more generally in gauge theories.
The main goal of this research project is to improve the understanding of the properties of radiation in generic gauge theories by charged particles, both in accelerated motion in vacuum, and traversing media at finite temperature and/or finite density.
Besides the intrinsic interest of the question addressed in the project, there are a number of expected applications of the potential results. Chiefly, energy loss and momentum difussion by heavy probes traversing a medium are important diagnostics to characterize it, so this project can find applications in a better modelization of various corners of the QCD phase diagram (e.g. the quark gluon plasma observed at RHIC@Brookhaven and LHC@CERN).
This project is to be carried out under the guidance of Bartomeu Fiol, a member of the Gravitation and Cosmology group at the Institute for Cosmos Sciences, at the University of Barcelona. Within this group, this project has overlap with the research interests of David Mateos and Jorge Russo. In recent years, this line of research has resulted in collaborations with researchers at the Weizmann Institute (Israel), UNAM (Mexico) and the University of Texas (USA).
This line of research has resulted in two PhD thesis, eight published articles in high impact journals, and invited talks at international workshops.
Job position description:
The student is expected to carry out original research along the lines presented in the research project. The project outlined has a dominant formal component, so the successful candidate ought to have a solid background in Quantum Field Theory, and strong analytical skills.
This research project aims to put to work fairly recent developments in the analytic understanding of Quantum Field Theories. In particular, the student will have to become familiar with the gauge/gravity correspondence, and with supersymmetric localization.
Some of the specific objectives that the student is expected to pursue are the following:
- a precise understanding of the angular distribution of radiated energy in strongly coupled gauge theories. While the total, integrated, energy radiated is now under analytic control for a particular class of gauge theories, the same is not true for the angular distribution.
- better analytic control of the cusp anomalous dimension of generic gauge theories. The cusp anomalous dimension is one of the key quantities that appears in many observables in gauge theories. Its exact determination appears to be out of reach with currently known techniques, but recent developments allow for its determination in particular limits.
- a better understanding, and an eventual extension, of the recently uncovered relation between the meson spectrum and the radiation properties of certain gauge theories.
- Radiative magnetohydrodynamics in powerful astrophysical outflows[+]
Group Leader: Valentí Bosch-Ramon
http://icc.ub.edu/people/178Research Project
The understanding of the astrophysical sources producing ultra-relativistic particles and energetic radiation requires the characterization of the underlying physics, which typically involve complex magnetized fluid dynamics, particle acceleration, and leptonic and hadronic radiation processes. This characterization has traditionally relied on models based on strong simplifying assumptions on the emitting region. The great improvement in observational instrumentation during the last decades has slowly pushed the field towards more complex theoretical models, and now it is time to work on fluid dynamics accounting for the production of ultra-relativistic particles and their radiation.
The project is focused on: (i) the development of extensions of existing relativistic magnetohydrodynamical codes to include the presence of very energetic particles and their emission; (ii) application of these tools to powerful galactic and extragalactic sources that feature interaction structures (binary systems, active galactic nucleus jets, etc.) that are expected to strongly radiate gamma rays and lower energy emission; (iii) to compare the accurate computational results with observations of these sources.
The research group is mostly oriented towards the theoretical modeling of very energetic sources in the Universe. The group leader, Dr. Valentí Bosch-Ramon, has been working for many years on galactic and extragalactic sources, and has a long experience and robust knowledge on the different techniques applied to model these objects, and interpreting related observations. In addition, the research group is embedded in a worldly recognized group led by Prof. Josep M. Paredes, with decades of experience in multi-wavelength observations from radio to gamma rays. It is thus the perfect context to plan observations to provide the theoretical research with observational feedback. Finally, the research will be carried out within a powerful net of experts from all over the world.
Job position description:
The job position requires some modest experience with structured programming. At least basic understanding of special relativity and fluid dynamics is important. A working knowledge of English is also needed. It is also important to be open to attend conferences and carry out research stays abroad. Finally, what is mostly needed is motivation for solving interesting, complex but surmountable, physical problems, to work hard, and to learn team work as well as analytical and synthesis skills.
There is an important multi-disciplinary element in the job position, as it links basic physics disciplines with applied astrophysics and astronomy, i.e fluid dynamics in extreme conditions, modeling of radiation from astrophysical sources, and interpretation of observations and planning for prediction testing.
The doctorate schedule may be organized as follows:
- The doctoral fellow will develop extensions of powerful codes for relativistic magnetohydrodynamics. These extensions will take into account the generation, transport and energy evolution of ultra-relativistic particles in the simulated flow. This tool will permit sound and consistent modeling of powerful and complex sources, not well understood yet. In parallel, the fellow will become familiar with relativistic hydrodynamics, and non-thermal processes. This task would last for the first year.
- The fellow will apply the developed tools to hot topics in high-energy astrophysics, like gamma-ray production in galactic systems and in extragalactic jets. In parallel, the fellow will become familiar with the observations carried out to study these sources in the whole electromagnetic spectrum. This task would start towards the end of the first year.
- The fellow may take part in observational campaigns to observe the modeled sources, and participate in the proposal stage as well as in the interpretation of the results. This activity could take place during the second half of the doctoral period.
- Search for physics beyond the Standard Model in the LHCb experiment [+]
Group Leader: Eugeni Graugés Pous
http://icc.ub.edu/people/35Research Project
The experimental particle physics team in the ICCUB has contributed to heavy flavor experiments during the last 20 years. During this time, it has participated in the HERA-B experiment at DESY (Hamburg), the BaBar experiment at SLAC (Stanford) and, currently, the team is member of the LHCb collaboration at CERN (Geneva). Besides its contributions to the physics program of these experiments, the group has developed a significant expertise in the design, manufacturing and operation of custom electronics for the readout of photo-detectors.
A series of research grants, awarded mainly by the Spanish government in the calls from 1999-2014, funded the ICCUB participation in the LHCb experiment since the approval of the Technical Proposal by the LHCC (1998).
Concerning the responsibilities in the construction, installation and operation of the LHCb apparatus, the ICCUB contributions were focused in the Scintillator Pad Detector electronics of the calorimeter system. Work was performed in the design of the electronics and the integration in the general Experiment Control System (ECS). Maintenance tasks include the regular checks of detector setting parameters, replacement of aged electronic parts and improvement of the ECS software.
The ICCUB group has been involved in LHCb experiment physics analysis of radiative b-hadron decays where the signature is a photon in the final state. In this analysis, the ICCUB group is exploiting its expertise in the photon reconstruction carried out by the Calorimeter system in LHCb. As a result of all of the above participation, a total of 13 PhD thesis have been defended in the University of Barcelona since 2003.
LHCB responsibilities taken by ICCUB members have included: Computing Resource Manager (R. Graciani), Spain’s National Contact Person (E. Graugés, L. Garrido), Head of the LHCb National Computing Board (R. Graciani) and representative at the WLCG collaboration board (R. Graciani) and, Editorial Board (L. Garrido, E. Graugés)
Job position description:
Operation, exploitation, and upgrade of the LHCb experiment at CERN: LHCb is designed to search for physics beyond the Standard Model (SM) of particle physics through precision measurements of CP violation and rare decays of heavy-flavored hadrons produced at the LHC. At least two of the very few observations that point to the existence of physics beyond the SM (the baryon-antibaryon asymmetry and the neutrino oscillations) have a flavor physics nature. The search for new experimental insight in this field is therefore the next major milestone of the LHC experiments after the discovery of the Higgs boson. Direct searches provide the most direct path to the detection of new physics up to masses of the order of 1 TeV. Indirect searches at LHCb open the range up to 100 TeV through manifestations in quantum loops, with sizeable effects on some well-known physical observables, such as directly produced beauty and charmed particles. This thesis is in the frame of B meson radiative decays. For instance, the analysis of the isospin asymmetry between the radiative B meson decays B0→ k*0(892)g and B+→ k*+(892)g , that only differ in the spectator quark, and observables like the CP asymmetry and BR should not be significantly different (modulus the little mass difference). Nevertheless, this measurement can be sensitive to New Physics through a wide variety of mechanisms that produce isospin breaking effects (e.g., MSSM at large tanβ). To carry out this work, frequents trips and stays at CERN will be required (25% of the time) to exchange information, in LHCb collaboration meetings, as well as participation into data taking shifts in the experiment control room and in subdetector operations management.
- Small scale, feedback, dark matter and the predictions of the LCDM model [+]
Group Leader: Raul Jimenez
http://icc.ub.edu/people/98Research Project Description
Measurements of clustering of matter in the Universe are key for addressing some of the biggest open questions in physics such as the nature of dark matter and the nature of dark energy. In particular weak gravitational lensing offers a window to observe directly the clustering of mass rather than that of visible light. Even for a dark matter probe such as weak gravitational lensing, however, there may be non-negligible effects arising from highly non-linear processes involving baryons i.e. stars, quasars etc. These are called “baryonic effects’ and may seriously compromise the interpretation of future data. Our group has developed sophisticated and innovative tools to mitigate this risk and analyse forthcoming cosmology surveys. We wish to use them to unveil the nature of dark matter and along the way learn about the `baryonic effects’ themselves.
The group is composed by faculty member Licia Verde, Raul Jimenez, postdocs Antonio Cuesta, Fergus Simpson, Alvise Raccanelli and graduate students Jose Luis Bernal, Nicola Bellomo.
Job Position Description
This is a PhD project. It will involve research at the frontier of knowledge. Scientific output in the form of peer-reviewed articles is the expected outcome. At least three published articles are expected for the PhD degree to be awarded. The student will learn advanced techniques in cosmology both numerical and analytical as well as statistical, and then will have to use these to discover how to connect theoretical models to observations. The emphasis of the project is on understanding what dark matter is. This is mostly phenomenology project that requires excellent knowledge of cosmology and astronomy as well as advanced statistical techniques at the master level.
Prerequisites: master degree in physics or equivalent, a cosmology course or astronomy, programming skills, text editor skills (latex).
Expectations:
- work effectively towards completion of the degree in a timely manner.
devote full time and effort towards completing degree requirements and the required work towards the PhD.learn the existing theories, practices and research methods of the discipline and to apply these. - communicate regularly with faculty advisors providing updates on the student’s progress within the program and updates on results of research activities.
- assume the highest integrity and maintain ethical standards in all aspects of the student’s work, especially in the tasks of collecting, analyzing, and presenting research data.
- where applicable, to maintain detailed, organized and accurate records of the work done.
- attend and participate in appropriate meetings, colloquia, seminars and group discussions that are part of the educational program, and the student should submit all relevant research results that are ready for publication in a timely manner.
- work effectively towards completion of the degree in a timely manner.
- The Origin of Terrestrial Planets [+]
Group Leader: Paolo Padoan
http://icc.ub.edu/people/103Research Project
What sets the stage for the formation of rocky planets, possibly hosting conditions favorable to the emergence of life? Planets are the result of the evolution of dusty gaseous disks around young stars born within large clouds of cold interstellar gas containing thousands to millions of solar masses. To model ab initio the formation of protoplanetary disks we must develop a computational framework that captures the complex environment of star forming clouds, including the coupling of turbulence, magnetic fields, stellar radiation and gravity over a vast range of scales.
The project is composed of two parts: 1) Large-scale simulations of star-forming clouds, to achieve a realistic description of initial and boundary conditions for a large number of young stars and their circumstellar disks. 2) Simulations of dust evolution in protoplanetary disks, embedding billions of inertial particles, to study the transport and evolution of dust grains coupled with the gas dynamics self-consistently.
These are very challenging multi-scale and multi-physics computational problems, requiring state-of-the-art massively parallel codes and large supercomputing allocations. The development of numerical codes is thus an important part of this project, which is carried out in close collaboration with the computational astrophysics group at the University of Copenhagen. The group in Barcelona will be composed by Prof. Padoan (group leader), Prof. Estalella, Dr. Frimann, the PhD student, and long-term visitors from the University of Copenhagen. The main collaborators in Copenhagen will be Prof. Nordlund, Prof. Haugbølle and Dr. Grassi. We have a proven track record in the field of computational astrophysics, leading the most challenging supercomputing applications in supersonic turbulence, star formation, solar physics, and plasma physics. We are regularly awarded some of the largest allocations in supercomputing facilities in the USA (NASA High End Computing) and Europe (PRACE program).
Job position description:
The PhD student who aspires to lead this project will have a keen interest in fundamental astrophysical processes, a demonstrated aptitude for the development and adoption of numerical codes, and a steadfast determination to become a world leader in the field of planet formation, with seminal and transformational contributions.
Though not a strict prerequisite, expertise in hydrodynamics, plasma physics, turbulence theory and interstellar radiative processes is desirable. Good knowledge and experience with programming languages is required.
The student will lead the development of specific code modules, the set up of numerical simulations and the analysis of their results. She/he will also collaborate in the preparation of supercomputing proposals and will be the leading author of at least two publications per year in the second and third year of the project. The student will attend international conferences, workshops and focused schools on computational methods. She/he will spend part of the time at the Star and Planet Formation Center at the University of Copenhagen, to collaborate in the development of a new hydrodynamic code designed specifically for future exascale supercomputers.
Because of the multidisciplinary nature of this project, requiring expertise in interstellar medium physics, star formation, planet formation, magneto-hydrodynamics and computational methods, the student is expected to interact with different research groups within the Institute of Cosmos Sciences at the University of Barcelona and at other research centers abroad. Besides the collaborators in Copenhagen, the student will interact with researchers from the University of Helsinki (implementation of radiative transfer codes), Harvard University (physics of turbulence), University of Lund (origin of planetesimals), NASA Ames (modeling of dust evolution), Max Planck Institute of Munich (chemistry of protoplanetary disks).
- The Quantum Side of Dark Energy[+]
Group Leader: Cristiano Germani
http://icc.ub.edu/people/379Research Project
One of the most compelling problems of theoretical physics is to find a convincing explanation for the observed accelerated expansion of our Universe. Since our Universe is mostly empty, within the Einstein theory of gravity, the most natural way to implement this acceleration is to assume an intrinsic (dark) energy of the vacuum (the cosmological constant). However, this simple explanation immediately clashes with our knowledge of the quantum world. A cosmological constant is indeed easily produced as quantum vacuum energy of the standard model of particle physics; nevertheless, any reasonable estimation of this, gives at least 54 orders of magnitudes above the observed value. On the other side, it is widely believed that a Universe dominated by a cosmological constant is quantum mechanically unstable. What is not known is what the fate of such a Universe is and if it could in principle quantum mechanically evolve into the Universe we observe today. This would be a completely new interpretation of the present Universe evolution from an early (possibly inflationary) state where a large cosmological constant would dominate. The aim of this project is therefore to develop this idea and to investigate all possible peculiar signatures of it, e.g. in satellite observations such as the forthcoming European Space Agency (ESA) EUCLID satellite, where the proposed supervisor is a coordinator. The student will then be part of both a strong theoretical group within the Institut de Ciències del Cosmos at the Universitat de Barcelona and join the EUCLID international collaboration as an active member.
Job position description:
This PhD project is multidisciplinary: from one side, the student will develop the appropriate skills to master the most sophisticated techniques of quantum field theory, general relativity and their interconnections. In this way, the student will be able to apply these techniques to the answer the question of whether the evolution of our Universe has a genuine quantum explanation. At the same time, by developing possible signatures of a quantum Universe, the student will substantiate the predictions of his/her models by simulating data to be compared with observations. In particular he/she will specialize his/her studies to the Euclid experiment. The Euclid experiment is an ESA mission to map the geometry of the dark Universe looking back in time up to 10 billions years. In this way, Euclid will cover the entire period over which dark energy played a significant role in accelerating the expansion. The student then, by becoming member of the EUCLID experiment, will also attend regular meetings related to that and visits strategic research centers within the ESA EUCLID collaboration.
Applications
All applications must be completed online at:
https://www.lacaixafellowships.org/index.aspx
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklowdowska- Curie grant agreement No. 713673
The applicant must have a PhD in Astronomy, Astrophysics or Physics or have fulfilled all the requirements for a PhD by the time the contact starts.
The successful candidate will work with publication Licia Verde and the group on the interpretation of state-of-the art and forthcoming cosmological data. Experience with Cosmology, analysis of data, statistics, possibly applied in the cosmological context and familiarity with coding is highly desirable.
The bulk of the funding comes from an IDEAS European Research Council Award to Licia Verde. This position is for two years, possibly renewable for a third year, depending on performance and future funding.
A complete application (curriculum vitae, bibliography, summary of previous research, a statement of research interests and at least three references) should be uploaded here.
Applications will be accepted until the position is filled with consideration guaranteed to all applications received by January, 31, 2017. The position expected to begin in the fall of 2017, but earlier starting date is negotiable. Informal inquiries can be directed to Prof. Licia Verde (liciaverde@icc.ub.edu).
Benefits: Social security, national healthcare paid by the employer see e.g.:
http://spain.othercountries.com/pages/articles/index.asp?page=social-security
1. Missió:
Donar suport a la Secretaria Científica de l’Institut de Ciències del Cosmos de la Universitat de Barcelona (ICCUB) en aquelles tasques no assumides per altres unitats de la UB.
2. Funcions genèriques:
·Donar suport administratiu a la direcció de l’ICCUB i als seus membres.
·Gestionar les convocatòries internes i externes de l’institut i fer-ne publicitat.
·Atendre consultes externes sobre convocatòries relacionades amb l’institut.
·Donar suport als nous membres del’institut en temes d’extrangeria i contractació i facilitar-los la incorporació.
·Coordinar viatges i estades de visitants.
·Gestionar l’adscripció de membres a l’institut.
·Controlar l’assignació de despatxos i resoldre les incidències que s’hi puguin ocasionar.
·Fer el seguiment d’existències de material i realitzar noves compres.
·Donar suport a la secretaria de l’ICCUB en l’organització d’ativitats.
3. Mèrits a valorar per a la provisió del lloc
·Dinamisme i iniciativa en la resolució de problemes.
·Coneixements sobre el funcionament i la legislació de l’administració pública.
·Experiència en tasques administratives i de comptabilitat.
·Experiència laboral en unitats administratives de la Universitat de Barcelona.
·Nivell alt en ofimàtica: MS Word, Excel, clients de correu, cerca d’informació per internet, etc.
·Nivell d’anglès suficient per poder-se comunicar correctament a nivell oral i per correu electrònic.
·Coneixements i experiencia en l’ús de SAP.
4. Condicions de l’oferta
Horari: De dilluns a divendres, de 10:00 a 14:00
Sou brut mensual: 956,47 euros
Tipus de contracte: Obra i Servei
Durada del contracte: Període de prova de 3 mesos, prorrogable mentre hi hagi la necessitat del servei i el pressupost.
Si esteu interessats en l’oferta, podeu enviar una carta d’interès i un CV a secretaria@icc.ub.edu
The Gaia group at ICCUB is seeking a candidate to cover an engineer position for the Gaia mission.
We are looking for highly motivated candidates holding a University Degree. The chosen candidate will join a multidisciplinary team of astronomers and engineers working in the Gaia mission. Gaia is a mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) that is mapping extremely precisely our Galaxy.
His/Her work will be on the development of software for the treatment and analysis of scientific data produced by Gaia. He/She will work with the Initial Data Updating (IDU) system of Gaia and will be in charge of the development of the framework, implementation and interface with software produced by other teams and the tests of the IDU system. He/She will be responsible of the IDU runs and of the partial and total re-run for specific cases. He/She will be responsible of the development of IDU algorithms and of the related activities on the Data Processing Center of Barcelona.
The job requires:
- Degree in physics or engineering
- Good level of English (both written and spoken)
- Very good programming skills (especially in Java and Python)
- Expertise in HPC and experience in Marenostrum
- Knowledge of Linuz/Bash and shell scripting
- Ability to communicate and document
- Leading skills
Will be positively evaluated:
- Knowledge of astronomy
- Knowledge of HTML and PHP
- Familiarity with LaTex for documentation, SubVersion and GNUplot.
- Familiarity with Space research
- Spanish and Catalan are plus.
We will do a short test of the necessary skills.
The contract will begin in January 2017 for a maximum of two years.
Annual gross salary: 35.000€.
Contact Person: Lola Balaguer – email: lbalaguer@fqa.ub.edu
-----------------------------
El grup Gaia busca una persona amb perfil d’Enginyer de Gaia a l'Institut de Ciències del Cosmos (Maria de Maeztu)
Resum:
Es busca perfil d’enginyer superior per incorporar-se a un equip multidisciplinar (astrònoms i enginyers) que treballa en la missió Gaia. Gaia és una missió de l'Agència Espacial Europea (ESA) que produeix el mapa més precís de la nostra galàxia.
Tasques i responsabilitats:
La seva feina es centra en el desenvolupament de software per al tractament i anàlisis de dades científiques produïdes per Gaia. Treballarà en el sistema Initial Data Updating (IDU) de Gaia, encarregat del desenvolupament del framework, de la implementació i com a interfície amb algorismes produïts per altres equips i dels tests del sistema IDU. Responsable de les execucions d'IDU i del seu re-run total i parcial en casos específics. Responsable del desenvolupament dels algorismes d'IDU i de les activitats relacionades en el Data Processing Center de Barcelona.
Habilitats:
- Imprescindible nivell alt d'anglès (llegit, escrit i conversa).
- Imprescindible bons coneixements de llenguatges de programació orientats a objectes (especialment Java i Python).
- Expert en HPC i amb experiència en Marenostrum
- Coneixements de Linux/Bash i shell scripting.
- Comunicació escrita i verbal (capacitat de documentar).
- Capacitat de lideratge d'un equip.
- Es valoraran coneixements d'astronomia i experiència en missions espacials.
Es realitzarà una breu prova de les habilitats esmentades.
Jornada: jornada completa
Incorporació: gener 2017
Contracte d'obra i servei per un any, renovable un segon any.
Salari: 35000 (sou brut anual)
Persona de contacte: Lola Balaguer – email: lbalaguer@fqa.ub.edu
Three postdoctoral positions, funded by the European Research Council, are now open at the University of Barcelona. Selected candidates are expected to work with Prof Roberto Emparan and other members of the group on theoretical aspects of black hole physics, broadly defined.
Appointments will begin in the Fall of 2017 (or possibly earlier) for a period of 2+1 years, with the third year subject to performance and funding availability. The deadline for applications is November 30, 2016.
Faculty members of our group working on black holes, gravitation and related areas include Bartomeu Fiol, Cristiano Germani, Jaume Garriga, David Mateos, Josep M. Pons and Enric Verdaguer. For more information, visit our website http://icc.ub.edu/
Application procedure
The University Barcelona is part of a group of European institutes with a centralized system of postdoctoral applications. Thus interested candidates should apply through the following website, choosing Barcelona as one of their preferred institutes:
https://itf.fys.kuleuven.be/postdoc-application/
The Gaia group at ICCUB is seeking a candidate to cover a technical support position to the data archive for the Gaia mission.
We are looking for highly motivated candidates holding a University Degree. The chosen candidate will join a multidisciplinary team of astronomers and engineers working in Gaia Data Archive. Gaia is a mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) that is mapping the Galaxy. His/Her work will be giving support to the data archive with the implementation and execution of the validation tests of the data. He/She will be in charge of implementing the validation algorithms in Java, integrate the code in the Gaia validation framework, the control of the code execution and the extraction and analysis of the results in close cooperation with the scientist of the team. He/She will also be in charge of the development and maintenance of the Gaia simulator that provides the big scale simulations to the rest of the coordination units of Gaia.
The job requires:
- Good level of English (both written and spoken)
- Good programming skills (especially in Java and Python)
- Knowledge of Linuz/Bash and shell scripting
- Ability to communicate and document
- Familiarity with large teams work
Will be positively evaluated:
- Degree in physics or engineering
- Knowledge of HTML and PHP
- Familiarity with LaTex for documentation, SubVersion and GNUplot.
- Familiarity with Space research
- Spanish and Catalan are plus.
- We will do a short test of the necessary skills.
- The contract will begin in January 2017 for a year.
- Gross salary: 26.000€.
- Contact Person: Lola Balaguer – email: lbalaguer@fqa.ub.edu
-----------------------------
El grup Gaia busca una persona amb perfil de Tècnic d'enginyeria per a l'arxiu de la missió Gaia a l'Institut de Ciències del Cosmos (Maria de Maeztu).
Resum:
Es busca perfil de tècnic d'enginyeria per incorporar-se a un equip multidisciplinar (astrònoms i enginyers), per a tasques de suport a l'arxiu de dades de la missió espacial Gaia de l'Agencia Espacial Europea (ESA).
Tasques i responsabilitats:
Les tasques són de suport de l'arxiu de dades amb la implementació i execució dels tests de validació de dades. Haurà de implementar els algorismes de validació en Java, la integració del codi a l'entorn de validació de Gaia, el control de l'execució del codi, així com la extracció i anàlisis dels resultats en cooperació amb els científics de l'equip. També s'encarregarà del desenvolupament i manteniment del simulador de Gaia que proporciona simulacions de gran escala a la resta de unitats de coordinació de Gaia.
Habilitats:
- Imprescindible nivell alt d'anglès (llegit, escrit i conversa).
- Coneixements de llenguatges de programació orientats a objectes
- (especialment Java i Python).
- Coneixements de Linux/Bash i shell scripting.
- Es valoraran coneixements d'HTML i PHP.
- Es valorarà LaTeX (per a documentació), SubVersion i GNUplot.
- Comunicació escrita i verbal (capacitat de documentar).
- Capacitat de treball en equip.
Es realitzarà una breu prova de les habilitats esmentades.
Jornada: jornada completa
Incorporació: gener 2017,
Contracte d'obra i servei per un any.
Salari: 26000 (sou brut anual)
Persona de contacte: Lola Balaguer – email: lbalaguer@fqa.ub.edu
The Particle Physics Phenomenology group of the Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the University of Barcelona invites applications for the following non-tenured position:
One postdoctoral contract for a (non-extendable) period of four years. The default starting date would be 1 september 2017, but an earlier or later one is possible by common agreement. The approximate gross salary is 45,000 euros (approximately 27,000 euros after taxes and social security levies are deducted, but the final amount depends on the family situation of the postdoc). A limited amount of teaching could be assigned to the position on a voluntary basis.
The candidate is expected to work on phenomenological aspects of the Standard Model and possible extensions, and collaborating with the Phenomenology ICCUB faculty (D. Espriu, M.C. González-García, J. Guasch, J. Latorre, F. Mescia, J. Solà, J. Soto and J. Taron) is expected. The activities and interests of the different ICCUB groups can be found in the page icc.ub.edu
Candidates should meet the conditions set by the Juan de la Cierva program. The most relevant one is that applicants should have defended his Ph D after 1/1/11 and before 31/12/13. The lower limit is automatically extended by one year per every child born after the moment of the Ph D thesis defense. Other modifying circumstances may exist and in doubt candidates can ask for a clarification from the ICCUB secretariat (secretaria@icc.ub.edu)
PLEASE NOTE the unusual duration of the contract offered (four years)
DEADLINE: November 25th
One PhD studentship is open at the Institute of Cosmos Sciences at University of Barcelona (ICCUB). It is funded by the ERC Advanced Grant of Prof Roberto Emparan "A New Strategy for Gravity and Black Holes" (ERC-2015-AdG 692951 GravBHs).
The successful applicant will work directly with Prof Emparan on novel theoretical approaches to black hole physics and gravity. They will be members of a very active group doing research on many areas of gravitational theory, string theory and cosmology.
Candidates must hold an MSc or equivalent in a field that is closely related to theoretical physics, with excellent performance in General Relativity.
The start date is expected to be early in 2017. The position will be funded for up to 4 years, and includes travel money.
Applications must be made online at the link provided above, and will contain a CV and at least two reference letters. Applications by any other means will not be considered.
See http://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/204480_en.html for information about the objectives of the ERC project that funds this position
ICCUB offers a Technician position. The contract will have a maximum duration of 4 years, and will be supported by Banco Santander through “Post-doctoral researchers and technicians incorporation to Excellence units Maria de Maeztu” programme.
We are looking for highly motivated candidates, holding a University Degree on the level of Graduate, Engineer, or Architect. The scope of this call is similar to that of the Técnicos de Apoyo Grant Scheme.
The candidate will work on implementation of real-time systems for on board processing in space missions and for scientific instrumentation. Particularly back-end (data acquisition) and control systems for complex scientific instrumentation (space missions, particle detectors, etc) and related industrial applications. She/he will participate in all phases of FPGA design Flow (Synthesis, Place & Route, and Timing Closure). She/he will work in bringing-up and validate FPGAs and cards in the lab. He/she will develop real time processing in dedicated HW (ARM, GPU, DSP, etc). The candidate will work with the data and electronics engineering services of the ICCUB in a multidisciplinary environment involving also ICCUB scientists and international researchers. Those teams have developed instrumentation for space missions, astronomic observatories and particle detectors in high energy physics colliders.
The requisites of the candidate are knowledge and experience in:
- Engineering degree or similar (preferably Electronics Engineer) with good knowledge on FPGAs and real time processors.
- Implementation and verification of complex products that use FPGAs, ASICs and other real time processor (ARM, GPU, DSP, etc).
- Micro architecture and design partition within the ASIC/FPGA.
- Implementation of design blocks using Verilog / System Verilog.
- Knowledge of HW/SW co-design
ICCUB offers to the candidate the option to obtain a PhD associated to the tasks developed in this position.
Contract duration: 4 years
Goss salary per year: 16 K€
Interested candidates are invited to send the mandatory documents by email to: dgascon@fqa.ub.edu and jportell@fqa.ub.edu
Mandatory documents are:
- Curriculum vitae
- Copy of identity card (DNI) or passport
- Certified copy of the diploma
- Signed declaration stating that the candidate is not working in the Universitat de Barcelona and that he has not received a grant from “las convocatorias de personal técnico de apoyo del Programa Estatal de Investigación Científica y Técnica y de Innovación 2013-2016”
The original certified copy (3) and the signed declaration (4) should be send by ordinary mail to
Institut de Ciències del Cosmos
Martí i Franquès, 1
E-08028 Barcelona
Deadline: October 21th, 2016 at 15.00 h.
DOCUMENTS
The University of Barcelona has published a call for PhD grants (APIF). 2 of these PhD grants will been assigned to the Institute of Cosmos Sciences. If you wish to apply for one of these grants, please follow the instructions given by the Universitiy of Barcelona.
Information about the call: http://www.ub.edu/beques/3rcicle/ub/apif/index.html
Application form:http://convocatories.ub.es/brd/
Contact:
For non-scientific issues: beca.predoctoral@ub.edu or +3493 402 17 74
For scientific issues: The ICCUB member who would be in charge with your thesis
The Institute of Cosmos Sciences (ICCUB), a María de Maeztu Excellence Unit of the University of Barcelona, announces the opening of four predoctoral positions in the frame of the MINECO's program "Ayudas para contratos predoctorales para la formación de doctores 2016".
The fellowships will have a duration of 4 years. If the PhD thesis is finished in 3 years, the student will be able to keep their contract as a postdoc fellow for one more year.
Applications should follow the MINECO's procedure. For an English translation of the procedure please see attached document.
Positions associated with the María de Maeztu Excellence Unit:
1- PRECISE DETERMINATION OF THE NEUTRINO MASS FROM COSMOLOGY
IP: Licia Verde
[+]
Neutrinos are the only DM component that has been directly detected. They are particularly interesting to study because of the synergy between astrophysical observations and particle physics experiments.
We have been among the leaders in this line of research demonstrating the power of future cosmological data in constraining neutrino properties. We have been taking the initial steps for applying these findings to real data (galaxies and Lyman-alpha forest) and provided robust constraints from current data. We now propose to gear up towards a full development and application to forthcoming data. We will build upon our previous experience (e.g., SDSS3). We will actively participate in the DESI (Dark energy Spectroscopic Instrument) Project and we will work towards getting the tools ready for Euclid data.
Although cosmology can provide the most stringent limits to the mass of relic neutrinos, only accelerator, reactor and underground experiments can eventually provide the full picture regarding mixing angles and other properties of neutrinos. Our group has world experts in neutrino physics who will work to complement the cosmological investigations.
The successful candidate will have the opportunity to join the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument(DESI) surveyand the Euclid survey.
References:
BOSS (https://www.sdss3.org/surveys/boss.php)
DESI (http://desi.lbl.gov,http://arxiv.org/pdf/1308.0847.pdf)
Euclid (http://sci.esa.int/euclid/, http://arxiv.org/pdf/1206.1225.pdf)
The host group: Licia Verde’s Cosmology group includes: Raul Jimenez, Antonio Cuesta, Ricardo Ferreira, Fergus Simpson, Alvise Raccanelli, Nicola Bellomo, Jose Luis Bernal Mera. More information at:http://icc.ub.edu/research/research_areas/cosmology
How to apply: The call, verification of conformity of the submitted documentation, and the first part of the selection process will be handled by the “Ministerio”. The last part of the selection will be handled by ICC. Please find the application interface and documentation at
Beside the documentation required by the “ministerio” two recommendation letters should be sent to Licia Verde: liciaverde@gmail.com
2-SEARCH OF NEW PHYSICS IN RADIATIVE FLAVOUR DECAYS
IP: Lluís Garrido
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ICCUB participates in the LHCb experiment at CERN since1998. The experiment is designed for precision studies of b (and c) quarkdecays at the LHC accelerator. On the one hand it performs CP-violationmeasurements and, on the other hand, it looks for indirect effects of possiblephysics beyond the standard model on these CP-asymmetries, as well as on raredecay modes of flavour changing particle decays.
ICCUB has beenvery strongly involved in the construction of the detector, developing thereadout electronics of the SPD detector as part of the calorimeters. At presentit is highly involved in the R&D phase, developing the new version of thereadout electronics for the calorimeter and the electronics for the newtracking detector.On data analysis thegroup is mainly focused in the study of radiative decays of B mesons as well asrare decays to search for hints of new physics.
The selected candidate is expected to have a significantcontribution in the analysis of radiative flavour decaysobserved in the LHCb experiment.
For more information about our group please visit
http://icc.ub.edu/research/research_areas/experimental_particle_physics
Scientific contact persons:
Lluís Garrido: garrido@icc.ub.edu
Eugeni Graugés: grauges@fqa.ub.edu
Ricardo Graciani: graciani@icc.ub.edu
3- GALAXY FORMATION AND CHEMO-DYNAMICAL EVOLUTION UNRAVELLED BY GAIA
IP: Jordi Miralda
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The Institute of Cosmos Sciences at the University of Barcelona (ICCUB) has several FPI student fellowships funded by the Maria de Maeztu program. One of these fellowships is for a thesis in astrophysics, in the general areas of star formation, galactic structure and dynamics, galaxy evolution, large-scale structure and the intergalactic medium, and high-energy astrophysics.
Students must hold a Master degree in Physics. Interested candidates are asked to contact the Institute quickly as the application must be submitted online to the Spanish Ministry before September 27th 2016. For scientific questions you may contact miralda@icc.ub.edu.
To help you for the online application to the Spanish Ministry for this scholarship, the ICC has prepared this help page: http://icc.ub.edu/student/grant
4- THE GAIA ARCHIVE
IP: Xavier Luri
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El grupo Gaia del Instituto de Ciencias del cosmos de la Universidad de Barcelona (ICC-UB) ofrece un contrato predoctoral FPI en el marco del programa Maria de Maetzu para la realización de una tesis doctoral sobre la explotación científica del archivo de datos de Gaia.
*Descripción*
El catálogo Gaia va a proveer a la comunidad astronómica con un volumen sin precedentes de datos astrométricos, fotométricos y espectroscópicos. Su explotación va a requerir nuevas técnicas de análisis de datos que permitan analizar este gran volumen globalmente, técnicas de minería de datos y big data. Esta tesis estará dedicada a la implementación de estas técnicas para diversos casos de uso científicos del archivo en la línea de trabajo de nuestro equipo. En particular: comparación global de modelos de galaxia con el catálogo, calibraciones de luminosidad de indicadores primarios de distancia, búsqueda y análisis de cúmulos abiertos, entre otros.
El candidato deberá trabajar en estos casos de uso para la explotación del catálogo de Gaia así como las posibles correlaciones con otros catálogos astronómicos, haciendo uso de las últimas tecnologías en Big Data, herramientas estadísticas y de Machine Learning.
*Requisitos*
Grado en física con especialización en astrofísica. Se considerará también la posibilidad de candidatos con estudios de ingeniería informática si tienen una formación sólida en astrofísica. Se requieren buenos conocimientos de programación, particularmente en Python y/o Java, y dominio del inglés.
Se valorarán como méritos adicionales:
* Conocimientos de estadística y Machine Learning
* Conocimientos de Unix y en particular de lenguajes de scripting Shell script
* Conocimientos de herramientas de procesado masivo de datos como Hadoop/MapReduce, Scala, etc.
* Conocimientos de trabajo en bases de datos relacionales y SQL
*Contacto*
Lola Balaguer: lbalaguer@fqa.ub.edu
The Gaia group from the Institute of Cosmos Science and the Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia opens a call for TWO scholarships for the months of July to September for research training. These scholarships are addressed to:
(A) Students in the final years of the degree in Physics or of the double degree in Physics-Mathematics, who have completed the course in Observational Astronomy or can demonstrate equivalent knowledge.
(B) Students in the final years of an engineering degree (preferably Computer Science or Telecommunications) or a Mathematics degree.
Programming skills and ability to work independently will be positively valued.
During the gran tperiod a research project related with the research lines of the group will be developed. The Gaia group is involved in the space mission of the same name whose aim is to measure the positions, movements, parallaxes and physical properties of a billion stars in our Galaxy. Gaia was launched in December 2013 and is currently undergoing the operational phase that lasts 5 years. The projects to be developed are related to the preparation of the data exploitation data from both a scientific and technological point of view, and possibly supporting data processing systems at the BCS-MareNostrum.
The remunerationis of 700 euros gross per month.
Interested people must submit a CV, a copy of the academic transcript and a cover letter explaining why are you interested in this grant to Susanna Bascón sbascon@am.ub.es before the 31 May 2016. The resolution will be the 15 June 2016.
For further information, contact with:
Jordi Torra, Francesca Figueras, Xavier Luri o Carme Jordi (Facultat de Física)
El període de col·laboració és de l'1 d'octubre de 2016 al 31 de juliol de 2017.
La presentació de sol·licituds es fa per via telemàtica a través de la seu electrònica de la Universitat de Barcelona de l'11 d'abril al 18 de maig de 2016: https://seu.ub.edu
Trobareu més informació al document adjunt.
The Gaia group (Department of Astronomy and Meteorology at University of Barcelona, Institute of Cosmos Sciences, Institute for Space Studies of Catalonia) is looking for a student to join a multidisciplinary team of astronomers and engineers, to operate, test, monitorize and evaluate the efficiency of a software for massive processing of scientific data, for the ESA's Gaia space mission.
Tasks and responsbilities:
- Daily supervision of the Gaia data processing system in Madrid
- Execution, analysis and documentation of tests on the daily processing system
- Improve and automatizaton and monitorization of the system as needed
- Improving and automating an alert system for the daily processing of Gaia
- Supervision of the Gaia data processing system in Barcelona
- Implementing and improving modules of the data processing system in Barcelona
- Supporting tasks of the processing center in Barcelona
- Review of the website monitoring system of the daily processing of Gaia
Required skills:
- Indispensable High level of English (reading, writing and speaking).
- Knowledge of object oriented programming languages (Java, Python, ...).
- Knowledge of Linux / bash and shell scripting
- Knowledge of HTML and PHP will be positively valued.
- Knowledge of LaTeX (for documenting), SubVersion, and GNUplot will be positively valued.
- Strong written and oral communication skills.
- Documentation skills.
- Team-work ability.
We will make a brief aptitude test in order to prove the mentioned skills.
Contract: part-time.
Immediate incorporation.
Interested people should send a CV and a copy of the academic record to sbascon@am.ub.es
The Institute of Cosmos Sciences at the University of Barcelona (ICCUB) invites applications for 1 postdoctoral position in Experimental Particle Physics to join the ICCUB LHCb group. The ICCUB has experienced a major expansion in the last few years and has been awarded the Maria de Maeztu Unit of Research Excellence distinction.
Applicants should have completed a PhD in Physics by the time the contract starts. The successful applicants are expected to join the ICCUB at most by the end of 2016, and will be encouraged to collaborate broadly with our faculty, other postdocs, and students.
Candidates with interest and/or experience in :
- Experimental particle physics
- Data Analysis
- CP Violation in b-Hadrons
- Radiative decays of b-Hadrons
The ICCUB currently participates in the LHCb experiment at CERN and contributes to its future upgrade. General scientific inquiries in relation to the positions can be addressed to Dr. Eugeni Graugés (eugeni.grauges@cern.ch).
The positions is for two years and it is renewable for a third one subject to funding availability. The gross annual salary will be approximately €32000, and it includes full family health insurance benefits. Reasonable travel funding will be available.
Applicants should submit their applications electronically at icc.ub.edu/job/offers including their curriculum vitae, a description of past and current research and a statement of research interests, and arrange for three letters of recommendation by December 15 2015.
The deadline for the recommendation letters to be submitted is December 31.
Applicants should have completed a PhD in Physics or Astrophysics by the time the contract starts. The successful applicants are expected to join the ICCUB before the end of 2016, and will be encouraged to collaborate broadly with our faculty, other postdocs, and students. Candidates with interest and/or experience in the following research areas of current interest at ICCUB will be prioritised:
- Theoretical cosmology, large-scale structure surveys,
- Dark matter, galaxy formation and the intergalactic medium,
- High-energy astrophysics,
- Numerical simulations and observations of star formation,
- Galactic astronomy in the GAIA era.
The ICCUB has access to large computer resources for numerical studies, and participates in the international missions of GAIA, MAGIC, CTA, DESI, WEAVE and LSST. Applicants are encouraged to consult the ICCUB research interests at icc.ub.edu for more details, and to contact directly the faculty in the research lines of their interest. General scientific inquiries in relation to the positions can be addressed to jmparedes@icc.ub.edu.
The positions are for two years and are renewable for a third one subject to funding availability. The gross annual salary will start at €30000, and the position includes full family health insurance benefits. Reasonable travel funding will be available.
Applicants should submit their applications electronically at icc.ub.edu/job/offers including their curriculum vitae, a description of past and current research and a statement of research interests, and arrange for three letters of recommendation by December 15th 2015. The deadline for the recommendation letters to be submitted is December 30th.
Two postdoctoral positions are now open at the ICCUB. Candidates in the areas of Gravitation, Cosmology, Particle Physics and String theory will be considered. The positions are partially funded by the European Research Council and by the Maria de Maeztu Unit of Research Excellence distinction.
Appointments will begin in the Fall of 2016 for a period of 2+1 years, with the third year subject to performance and funding availability. The deadline for applications is November 30 2015. However, candidates are encouraged to apply as soon as possible, since some of them may be invited to visit the University of Barcelona over the coming weeks.
For information about research at our group visit our website http://icc.ub.edu/
Application procedure
The University of Barcelona is part of a group of European institutes with a centralized system of postdoctoral applications. Thus interested candidates should apply exclusively through the following website, choosing Barcelona as one of their preferred institutes:
https://itf.fys.kuleuven.be/postdoc-application/
The Institute of Cosmos Sciences at the University of Barcelona (ICCUB) invites applications for one electronics engineer positions for technological developments within SiUB. The ICCUB has experienced a major expansion in the last few years and has been awarded the Maria de Maeztu Unit of Research Excellence distinction.
SIUB is an instrumentation service of the Physics Faculty of the University of Barcelona created with the aim of providing a service on instrumentation design, development and test to research groups of the UB and other research institutions and to enhance industry technology transfer.
The selected candidate is expected to cover a wide spectrum of electronics, ranging from fast low noise amplifiers to control and readout of multi channels digital systems and involves all tasks from circuit design and layout, to building characterization setups and programming micro controllers and FPGAs. Thus, providing support to ICCUB technological projects like the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA), Large Hadron Collider beauty (LHCb) or new space projects currently in preparation. SiUB is also very active in technology transfer in the field of medical imaging and light sensors signal processing.
Expected profile:
- University degree (or equivalent, including experience) in the electronics engineering
- Profound know-how and experience in
- analogue and/or digital electronics
- design and simulation tools for digital and analog ASIC development
- PCB design tools, RF simulation and characterization
- Know-how and experience in
- FPGA programing (VHDL)
- PCB assembly and test equipment
- Programming in LabView
- technical project management and of the systems engineering processes
- General purpose programming and data analysis
- Good level of English (both written and spoken)
- Ability to write accurate and consistent technical documentation
- Familiarity with large teams
- Readiness for occasional trips to experiment sites worldwide
- Spanish and Catalan are plus
We intend to fill this position as soon as possible, with initial deadline by November 30th 2015.
The contract will be for one year renewable if funds are available.
The salary will be agreed upon with the successful applicant.
Contact Person: Ricardo Graciani
Please send your CV and letter of interest to jobs@icc.ub.edu with subject "EE2015"