The doctoral fellowship programme INPhINIT ”la Caixa” is devoted to attracting talented Early-Stage Researchers—of any nationality—who wish to pursue doctoral studies in Spanish or Portuguese territory. Sponsored by ”la Caixa” Foundation, it is aimed at supporting the best scientific talent and fostering innovative and high-quality research in Spain and Portugal by recruiting outstanding international students and offering them an attractive and competitive environment for conducting research of excellence.
The Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the University of Barcelona is a research centre accredited with the Spanish Seal of Excellence María de Maeztu in 2020, the perfect place to carry out your PhD project through an INPhINIT Incoming fellowship.
Research Project:
The recent discovery of gravitational waves (GW) has shown that most of the detected merging compact binaries were black holes more massive than 20 solar masses. This finding has opened new questions about the progenitors and formation channels for these systems. One of the possible ways to create such compact massive binaries is through the so-called common envelope evolution, when both stars end up sharing a common gaseous layer called the common envelope. The gravitational drag of the stars inside this envelope contributes to its ejection at the expense of tightening the binary. The ejection is observed as a bright transient source called Luminous Red Nova (LRN) appearing in the night sky and leaving a compact binary behind. Eventually, the binary components can explode as supernovae, resulting in high-energy phenomena and ultimately becoming GW sources. Despite its importance, the common envelope evolution is not well understood.
The goal of the research group led by Dr. Nadejda Blagorodnova at the Institute of Cosmic Sciences at the University of Barcelona (ICCUB) is to provide observational constraints on the physics of the common envelope evolution in binary stars. To this end, it aims to use observations of LRNe to better understand the progenitors, the outbursts, and the remnants of such common envelope ejections.
To study these transients, the quickly expanding research group participates in several international time-domain collaborations: Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) in the north, and BlackGEM and the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST – planned for end of 2024) transient science group in the south, offering numerous training opportunities.
Students at ICCUB form part of a vibrant and dynamic Ph.D. community, which benefits from mentoring and courses to improve transversal skills. Students also regularly interact with experts on related research fields such as stellar populations, high energy astrophysics, the Gaia ESA mission, and GWs.
Job position description:
This Ph.D. project will be developed in the context of time-domain astronomy, which is a very dynamic field of research that is expected to grow within the next decade. The goal of the project will be to constrain the physics of the common envelope evolution by studying a population of astrophysical transient events related to the ejection of the common envelope (a.k.a. LRNe).
With the support of the research team, you will discover these transient sources in time-domain surveys (among millions of discoveries per night) using machine learning techniques. To follow up these discoveries, you will learn photometric and spectroscopic observational techniques in the optical and near-infrared wavelengths, which will allow you to lead observational campaigns on interesting transients, reduce and analyze the data to infer the main properties of these events. Specially, you will focus on the statistical analysis of archival and recent transients to discover possible correlations between the characteristics of the events, their environment, and how these properties relate to the progenitor system (if detected in archival data). Finally, you will also compare the observations with predictions from Binary Population Synthesis models, which predict the evolution of large populations of stars.
To interpret the results of your research, you will gain solid knowledge on stellar binary evolution. Close collaboration with international experts in the theory of binary evolution and common envelope evolution (USA, Canada, The Netherlands, UK, Australia…) will provide further training opportunities in this field. The combined expertise in observational techniques, analysis of large time-domain data, and stellar evolution will put you in an excellent position to further pursue a research career.
More information:
Website of the Institute of Cosmic Sciences at the University of Barcelona. Host institute for the project.
https://icc.ub.edu/BlackGEM time domain survey. The student will become part of the collaboration and will have privileged access to the data.
https://astro.ru.nl/blackgem/Zwicky Transient Facility time-domain survey. The data from this survey (operating since 2018) will be used in the analysis of the time evolution and discovery of systems.
https://www.ztf.caltech.edu/Employment conditions
The ”la Caixa” Foundation will sign an agreement with the host institution, which will receive the fellowship payments directly:
- An annual payment of €35,800 to the institution to cover the Fellow’s contract, who will receive a minimum annual gross salary of €25.000. This amount might vary if there are modifications in the legal framework.
- €3,500 per year, as an additional amount for conferences, courses, research stays, consumables, equipment, charges for the use of intellectual property, etc.
- The tuition fees to the official doctoral programme
In addition to financial support, the fellowship includes a training programme on transversal skills, which has been specially designed by leading international institutions in the sector.
For more information on the employment conditions, please refer to this document.
Working at the Institute of Cosmos Sciences
The Institute of Cosmos Sciences is a research institute of the University of Barcelona. It is an interdisciplinary centre dedicated 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.
Moreover, the ICCUB participates in many key international scientific consortia and projects, such as the Large Hadron Collider, the Gaia astrometric space mission, the MAGIC / CTA high-energy astrophysics telescopes, and the Virgo gravitational wave detector, among others. Additional information about the Institute and the University of Barcelona can be found here.
You will be encouraged to contribute and interact with other researchers in the vibrant and international research environment as well as to participate in our outreach initiatives, more information at serviAstro and serviParticules.
As part of the University of Barcelona, the ICCUB is a recipient of the European Commission’s HR Excellence in Research (HRS4R) Award, which recognises, among other achievements, respect for equal opportunities and the capacity to attract talent in a positive working environment that promotes the pursuit of successful research careers. The ICCUB respects the principles of open, transparent, merit-based selection. We strongly encourage women and underrepresented minorities in physical sciences to apply. For additional information please see the Diversity, equity and inclusion Commission.
The ICCUB is located in Barcelona, considered the 8th World's Best Cities 2021: one with near-perfect weather year-round, miles and miles of beaches, iconic parks, striking architecture and colourful neighbourhoods that march to their own beat—artistic, sophisticated, bohemian. Moreover, it is a pole of attraction for the technology sector, a top choice to establish a company in this sector, and it hosts some of the world's major technological events, such as the Mobile World Congress and the Smart City Expo. In addition, Barcelona and its metropolitan area is a leading destination on the map of global technological ecosystems and has infrastructures such as science parks, universities and the 22@ district.
Requirements
In order to be accepted, candidates must meet the following eligibility requirements:
- Experience: candidates must not have carried out more than four years of research activity before the closing date of the call.
- Studies pursued: Applicants must hold a higher education degree that makes them eligible to enroll in a doctoral programme before starting at their host institutions.
The host university will verify, upon starting the admission process to the doctoral programme, that the studies taken up by the selected candidates make them eligible to enroll in an official doctoral programme in accordance with the regulations in force in Spain or Portugal. Should they be found not eligible after verification, the fellowship will be withdrawn.
Under no circumstances may candidates have previously enrolled in the same doctoral studies for which they are applying for the fellowship.
- Geographic mobility: Candidates must not have resided or have 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, done in a country other than their country of usual residence (where they carried out their main activity), will be considered as time spent in their country of usual residence.
- Level of English: Candidates must have a demonstrable level of English (B2 or higher).
For more information on the candidates requirements, please refer to this document.
Application Procedure
All applications must be submitted online through the following link in English. For more information on the application procedure, please refer to this document.
Deadline: Please submit your applications by January 24th 2024 at 2 pm.
Selection process:
The process is comprised of three phases:
- Eligibility screening: all applications received are reviewed to check the accomplishment of the eligibility criteria published in the rules for participation
- Remote evaluation (shortlisting): an evaluation panel will review the applications and those that receive the highest scores will pass to the next stage.
- Personal interviews: shortlisted candidates are invited to a remotely interview before a multidisciplinary committee on May 27, 28 and 29 2024.
The rating criteria that govern the selection process can be found in the Selection process guidelines section of the ”la Caixa” Fellowship Programme website.
For more information on the selection process, please refer to this document.
Funding: This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No713673.
The co-funded part of the programme runs from 01/10/2016 to 30/09/2021 and finances the researchers recruited under Call 2017 and 2018.