Message
I would be very
grateful if you would draw this notice to the attention of potential candidates,
either personally, or by forwarding the email to your internal distribution
lists or by posting a copy on the appropriate notice board. Thank
you.
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A PhD position is
available within the Laboratory Astrochemistry team at the University of Rennes
1 in Brittany, France, to be supervised by Prof Ian R Sims and Dr Sebastien Le
Picard. Brief details are given below:
Thesis
subject: Laboratory
astrochemistry – atomic and molecular collisions under extreme
conditions
Brief introduction:
Astrochemistry, or
understanding both the synthesis of molecules and grains in space, in order to
predict their abundances, and their subsequent chemical and physical behaviour,
not only represents a major scientific challenge but is of vital importance to
the field of astrophysics. Molecules play a crucial role not only in mapping the
Universe via the radio astronomical observation of molecular emissions, but also
by acting as vital cooling agents during the process of star formation.
Astrophysical environments display a wide variety of exotic conditions, ranging
in temperature from close to absolute zero up to several thousand Kelvin. The
speciality of our group is the use of methods which rely on flow reactors under
extreme conditions, for example the CRESU (Cinétique de Réaction en Ecoulement
Supersonique Uniforme or Reaction Kinetics in Uniform Supersonic Flow) technique
for chemical reactions and energy transfer down to 7K which was awarded one of
the first EU Descartes prizes in 2000. We combine these with state-of-the-art
laser techniques to initiate and probe reactive and inelastic processes within
the supersonic flow, using the exceptionally wide range of pulsed and cw lasers
now available within our group. The experience that will be acquired by the
student in the areas of aerodynamics, laser techniques and chemical physics will
be widely applicable not only in academic subjects but also for applied science
and engineering, providing an excellent basis for future careers both in
academic research and in industry.
Research topics:
It is planned
to develop three new areas here in
Rennes:
(i) Reactions and relaxation of atomic
free radicals
(ii) Product branching ratios for
reactions of astrochemical relevance
(iii)
Rotational energy transfer rates for key interstellar atoms and
molecules
Funding and eligibility: A three year grant to cover
living expenses is available from the French Education and Research Ministry. To
be eligible, students must be French or other EU nationals (or from a country in
the following list: Andorra, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Russian Federation, Iceland,
Norway, Romania, Switzerland, Turkey, Vatican State). In addition, they
must currently be in the final year of either a French DEA or equivalent
programme in their country as listed above (effectively, a Master level
programme which gives access to PhD studies). Finally they must usually be less
than 25 years old. Full details of eligibility may be found (in French) at
http://dr.education.fr/Alloc_doc/alloc_2.html#conditionalloc
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