Job Advertisement: Closing Date 25th April 2012
Interested candidates to pursue a PhD in cosmology are invited to apply
for a PhD scholarship at the astrophysics department at CEA Saclay,
France.
Subject: Weak gravitational lensing measurement for cosmology
This PhD will address the most important problem of weak lensing to date:
The measurement of the shapes of faint, high-redshift galaxies to
sub-percent precision. This performance is needed for upcoming large
galaxy surveys, in particular for Euclid. This optical and infrared
mission will image 15,000 degrees of the extra- galactic sky, to unravel
the origin of the present accelerated expansion of the Universe. Weak
lensing is one of the two main science drivers. For Euclid to meet its
goals, present methods of weak lensing shape measurements have to be
improved by an order of magnitude. Current methods based on Bayesian model
fitting or the measurement of moments of the light distribution, have been
successfully applied to ground-based (CFHTLenS) and space-based
(HST/COSMOS) observations, yielding accuracies at the one-to-five
percent-level. For future surveys, this precision has to be increased
significantly, yielding unbiased estimates of the shapes of a huge number
of galaxies.
To tackle this problem, the PhD student will work in a multi-disciplinary
environment, involving scientists from cosmology, image processing and
statistics. The work will be carried out within the Euclid weak lensing
team, of which several members work at CEA Saclay. Various dedicated image
simulations are available, which are used to validate the methods
developed by the student. Access to data from CFHTLenS is granted, to
allow for an immediate application of those methods, up to cosmological
interpretation, to get constraints on dark matter and dark energy. This
work will help to develop a weak-lensing pipeline for Euclid, to which the
CEA Saclay is a major participant.
Institute web page: http://irfu.cea.fr/Sap/en/Phocea/Vie_des_labos/Ast/index.php
Contact:
Dr. Martin Kilbinger
Email: [log in to unmask]
Tel.: +33 1 69 08 17 53
The CEA Saclay is located 15 km south-west of Paris. The astrophysics
department (SAp) at CEA is one of the major astronomy research centres in
Europe. It consists of about 200 people, and covers many research areas
such as cosmology, galaxy evolution, high-energy physics, numerical
simulations, statistics, star and planet formation, nuclear astrophysics,
and instrumentation.
The PhD work will be carried out in collaboration with Yannick Mellier at
the Institute of Astrophysics (IAP) in downtown Paris.
Applicants are asked to send a motivation letter, a CV, two reference
letters and their University certificates to [log in to unmask] before
April 25, 2012. Please don't hesitate to send further inquiries to the
same email address.
The CEA offers a limited number of scholarships each year. The supervisor
for each subject can support one candidate. The decision which PhDs are
financed will be made in June 2012, based on the excellence of the
candidate's dossier.
PhD positions at CEA will be offered for three years, starting from
autumn 2012. The salaries are very competitive, with a minimum of 1450
Euros per month. Travel money to participate in schools and conferences
will be provided in addition.
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