Two PhD positions for the study of white dwarfs with Gaia.

Ref: PRE_MDM_08 and PRE_OBSERVATORIO

Deadline 15th Dec 2021

The Spanish Virtual Observatory (SVO; https://svo.cab.inta-csic.es/main/index.php) group at the Centro de Astrobiología (CAB; https://cab.inta-csic.es/) offers two PhD positions. SVO, one of the most active groups in Virtual Observatory (VO; https://www.ivoa.net/) science at international level, is part of an international collaboration devoted to the study of white dwarfs. These studies are done together with people of the Astronomy and Astrophysics Group (GAA) at UPC (Barcelona Tech; Spain) and ESAC-Faculty (European Space Agency). The selected student will work within this collaboration.

The location of the SVO group is at the ESA campus in Madrid (ESAC; https://www.esa.int/About_Us/ESAC), where the selected student will be located too.

Context:

White dwarfs (WDs) constitute the most common final evolutionary state of stellar evolution, and as such, they are of fundamental importance in the understanding of the Universe. However, these studies require accurate observational inputs to test the theoretical models. The advent of the ESA Gaia mission have provided an unprecedented wealth of information. Thanks to the Gaia data, the number of known WDs has passed from few thousands to several hundreds of thousands. This allows for the first time systematic studies of different types of WDs in the Galaxy, such as WDs with debris disks or substellar companions.

Topics covered by our team are:

• white dwarfs in large database surveys
• Spectral type classification of WDs
• WDs mass distribution and luminosity function for thin and thick disk and halo population.
• Identification of WDs with circumstellar material and/or (sub)stellar companion
• The cooling process of WDs
• Star formation rate and disk age
• Formation and evolution of binary systems
• Kinematics of the WD population
• Dynamical studies of WDs pollution processes
• Analysis of planetary debris phenomena on WD atmospheres

Applications:

Applicants may be all those who have a degree in physics and are enrolled or admitted to a doctoral program at the time of the application submission. Applicants may also be all those people who, even though at the time of the application submission are not enrolled or admitted to a doctoral program, they will be on the date the contract is formalized.

Instruction for submitting the application are at https://www.inta.es/INTA/es/bolsa-de-empleo/oportunidad_1638185031260. The deadline is December 15th 2021.

Employment conditions:

The contract will be for a full-time position. The salary compensation that researchers in training must receive will be 22.284 euros gross per year. The duration of the contract will be for a maximum of four years.

Additional information:

fran.jimenez-esteban@cab.inta-csic.es