|
European Astronomical Society
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
EAS Job Directory
Find Jobs
| PhD Fellowship in Mining the Gaia catalogue: structure and kinematics of the Milky Way | Closing date: 2023-01-25
Contact: La Caixa Fellowships |
| The student will analyze these new catalogues that will cover regions of the Galaxy never explored before with these large amounts of data and such precision (e.g., end of the bar, outermost parts of the disc, where different processes might be dominating). The student will also explore the whole set of stellar clusters. Most of the clusters have determined ages and can help to date the different effects occurring to the MW disc. | | ▸ more | Research Project:
The Gaia mission of ESA is providing extensive catalogues with an unprecedented amount of data of extremely high precision. The recent third release (DR3), with about 1.8 billion stars, includes more radial velocities and astrophysical parameters, constituting the ideal dataset to study the structure and dynamics of the Milky Way (MW).
The Gaia data has been revolutionary in several aspects about our Galaxy. Firstly, Gaia has unveiled a large list of new stellar clusters and has characterized better the known ones. These stellar aggregates trace the young and intermediate-age component of the Galaxy. Secondly, the measurements of the phase space coordinates of many stars in the MW disc probe the forces acting on the Galaxy. Phase space substructures discovered by Gaia show that the MW is still recovering from past perturbations probably caused by the approaches of the Sagittarius dwarf Galaxy, while it may also be affected by the forces from the central bar and the spiral arms.
Disentangling the effects of these processes (internal and external) is crucial to uncover the exact history and evolution of the MW. What is the role of each of these mechanisms? Is one of them dominating? Where and in which periods of the MW life? Are these processes interfering with each other? The objective of the project is to establish the impact of the different mechanisms that act on the Galaxy disc including the bar, the spiral arms and the interaction with the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy.
The GaiaUB team (4 staff, 8 postdocs, 4 PhD, and 8 engineers) has a leading role in Gaia at the highest technological, scientific and management levels, as well as in the scientific and technical building of WEAVE. On the technical side, the Gaia group is expert on scientific HPC, Big data, massive catalogue statistics and analysis, and performs research in Galactic fields including dynamics, open clusters and the Large Magellanic Clouds. We have weekly science group meetings and a weekly journal club.
Job position description
In addition to Gaia data from DR3 and DR4 (2025-2026), data from the large spectroscopic surveys from the ground will soon provide kinematic and chemical data for stars that are too faint for Gaia to measure. We aim to explore these new data (Gaia, WEAVE @ WHT, 4MOST @ VISTA) to study the evolution of our Galaxy.
The student will analyze these new catalogues that will cover regions of the Galaxy never explored before with these large amounts of data and such precision (e.g., end of the bar, outermost parts of the disc, where different processes might be dominating). The student will also explore the whole set of stellar clusters. Most of the clusters have determined ages and can help to date the different effects occurring to the MW disc. In addition, the clusters allow the understanding of the mechanisms of their formation and disruption, and their contribution to the disc of the MW and its chemo-dynamical history.
The PhD will be carried out with the Gaia group at the ICCUB. Our group has long experience in the design, development, operation, archive and data exploitation of the mission. The student will also benefit from the interaction with the software engineering group at the ICCUB Technological Unit in order to develop and utilize Big Data and Data Mining tools to take full advantage of the amount and unique quality of the Gaia data; for this purpose, we will develop data mining algorithms and probabilistic (hierarchical Bayesian) models. The work in the PhD will combine the advanced data analysis and the scientific exploitation of the Gaia data and related surveys. The student will be formed in Data Science and data modelling.
The PhD student will create strong collaborations by being integrated in the international network of the team (e.g., DPAC consortium with 450 scientist and engineers, WEAVE science team, MW-Gaia COST and REG networks).
More information:
https://icc.ub.edu/node/21457
|
More resources
Links to other job lists
|
