Seeking postdoc with general experience in hardware development. InFOCµS is a funded balloon program to develop a hard X-ray telescope with <10" resolution to fly in 2013. The high spatial resolution light weight optics under development are the prototype for many new missions and coating them with multilayers is a key step to making higher energies accessible to lower cost missions. Depending on experience, the applicant would work closely with scientists and engineers on mirrors and/or detectors. The focal plane spatial resolution requirement is 200 µm, significantly better than NuSTAR and ASTRO-H, which we are implementing as a CdZnTe strip detector. Participation in integration of the balloon instrument and field campaigns is expected. The InFOCµS gondola will also support a flight of the X-Calibur hard X-Ray polarimeter in in 2013, which is a key part of the BEST mission concept. The two InFOCµS flights will demonstrate all the technology necessary for BEST. The science goal is a deep hard X-ray survey to resolve the hard X-ray cosmic background and understand role of AGN in the formation of galaxies. InFOCµS will demonstrate the technology necessary to completely resolve the hard X-ray background without source confusion and detect significant numbers of absorbed sources with z>2. We have available the Swift/BAT hard X-ray survey of the local universe, and expect the NuSTAR and ASTRO-H medium depth surveys will become available in the near future, making this a especially timely field for research. Applicants would be expected spend 30% of their effort writing scientific publications and proposals relevant to a future survey mission. The balloon program is funded through 2013, but we would strongly encourage applicants to propose for the NASA NPP fellowship.
Please check the nasa NPP website http://nasa.orau.org/postdoc/, specifically http://www.orau.org/healthinsurance/participant.htm for health insurance. For other employment options, we will provide contacts.
