Announcement of joint PhD opportunity at the Institute of Astronomy, BAS and ASTRON

The Institute of Astronomy of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (IANAO) and
ASTRON, the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy, are offering a joint
PhD position in heliospheric physics.

The sucessful candidate will work with Dr. Kamen Kozarev (IANAO) and Dr.
Pietro Zucca (ASTRON) on one or both of the following aspects of solar
eruptive events - 1) observational analysis (using SDO/AIA and other EUV
observational data) of global shock waves and compressions driven by
coronal mass ejections and detailed imaging of the related metric coronal
radio bursts (using LOFAR data); 2) modeling of the acceleration of solar
energetic particles in shock/compressive waves, and their transport in the
heliosphere, using analytic and numerical models.

This PhD position is primarily financed by the ESA-funded SPREAdFAST
project. The working language will be English. Starting date in October
2019 or by agreement. The PhD candidate will divide his/her time between
the Institute of Astronomy in Sofia, Bulgaria (approximately 75% of their
time), and ASTRON in Dwingeloo, The Netherlands (approximately 25% of their
time).

The successful candidate will be highly motivated and responsible, creative
and goal-oriented. He or she will  be fluent in spoken and written English,
and have (or be about to obtain) a Master’s degree in Astrophysics, Space
Physics, or a related discipline. The successful candidate will have good
skills in scientific programming with Python, IDL, or equivalent.
Experience with data reduction, analysis, and/or modeling is a plus.

For further information or to apply, contact Dr. Kamen Kozarev (
kkozarev@astro.bas.bg) or Dr. Pietro Zucca (zucca@astron.nl). Applications
will be reviewed on a rolling basis.
 

The SPREAdFAST investigation fulfills a vital component of the Space
Weather requirements of ESA’s Space Situational Awareness program by
contributing to the capability to protect Agency assets from solar activity
space radiation. We propose to develop a prototype and various scientific
aspects of a physics-based, operational heliospheric solar energetic
particle (SEP) forecasting system. It will allow for producing predictions
of SEP fluxes at multiple locations in the inner heliosphere, by modelling
their acceleration at Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) near the Sun, and their
subsequent interplanetary transport. The proposed prototype will
incorporate results from our scientific investigations, the modification
and linking of existing open source scientific software, and its adaptation
to the goals of the proposed work. The system will incorporate a chain of
data-driven analytic and numerical models, some of which have been
developed by us, for estimating: coronal magnetic field from Potential
Field Source Surface (PFSS) and Magnetohydrodynamics (MHD); dynamics of
large-scale coronal (CME-driven) shock waves; energetic particle
acceleration; scatter-based (not simple ballistic), time-dependent SEP
propagation in the heliosphere to specific time-dependent positions
(deriving coordinates from NASA’s SPICE toolkit), including spacecraft such
as Solar Orbiter and Parker Solar Probe. We will develop and test the
capability of the linked system to produce synoptic predictions of
heliospheric SEP spectra based on tables of typical values of the different
parameters along the process chain, which we will develop.