Postdoctoral Research Associate in Adaptive Optics

The Position and Division

The Centre for Superior Instrumentation (CfAI) is a big main analysis group within the Division of Physics at Durham College with roughly seventy employees and analysis college students. CfAI’s mission is to design and develop novel instrumentation primarily based on leading edge applied sciences. CfAI develops state-of-the-art floor and space-based devices for functions throughout a variety of disciplines together with adaptive optics, spectroscopy, biophysics, distant sensing, laser communications, and fusion diagnostics.

CfAI has supplied main devices for most of the world’s main astronomical amenities together with the James Webb House Telescope, William Herschel Telescope, Gemini Telescopes, Southern African Massive Telescope and the European Southern Observatory’s Very Massive Telescope. Main present ground-based instrumentation tasks in CfAI embrace HARMONI and MOSAIC, the first-light spectrograph and multi-object spectrograph for the upcoming 39m diameter Extraordinarily Massive Telescope.

The Position

Functions are invited for a Postdoctoral Analysis Affiliate place within the Adaptive Optics group in Durham. The function might be centered on the event and modelling of the wide-field ground-layer AO system for the MOSAIC instrument which is at the moment in its preliminary design section.

You can be anticipated to contribute to MOSAIC AO system design with an emphasis on the modelling of the ground-layer AO system efficiency. It will embrace modelling and characterising each telescope and instrument results that may influence system efficiency however happen on longer timescales than that of typical AO simulations. You’ll use and lengthen current simulation codes to look at the efficiency of the MOSAIC instrument beneath a spread of atmospheric and telescope configuration. These simulations might embrace each Monte-Carlo and/or semi-analytical codes. As a member of the MOSAIC AO group, you’ll be part of an skilled group of AO scientists and engineers primarily based right here in Durham, who will work with you to develop these codes and interpret outcomes.

By means of this place you may be making a vital contribution to the event of this worldwide astronomy facility. This function will go well with somebody who needs to realize sensible expertise of taking novel analysis outputs and creating applied sciences from them to the extent the place they are often integrated into leading edge scientific devices. You can be anticipated to work in shut collaboration with different members of the worldwide MOSAIC consortium who’ve a variety of scientific and engineering backgrounds.