THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER
FACULTY OF ENGINEERING & PHYSICAL SCIENCES
SCHOOL OF PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY
Research Associate in HI Intensity Mapping
A research associate position is available in the extragalactic and cosmology group, in The Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics (JBCA) at The University of Manchester. You will work on low frequency foregrounds as part of the ERC project “Enabling cosmology for future radio astronomy surveys: Dealing with foreground contamination”.
The University of Manchester is a world-leader in radio astronomy. One of the most exciting prospects in the near future is the detection of large-scale redshifted 21cm line emission from atomic hydrogen, known as “HI intensity mapping”. If mapped accurately, this will allow the detection of Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAOs) and thus measure the expansion history of the Universe and thus constrain dark energy. This is one of the key science drivers of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project whose headquarters will be located at Jodrell Bank Observatory. However, a major limitation to this will be the calibration and removal of the much larger foreground signal (e.g. from our Galaxy) that will swamp the cosmological signal. The JBCA cosmology group is pursuing HI intensity mapping, considering both interferometers and single dishes. We are proposing a new experiment: BINGO (“BAOs In Neutral Gas Observations”) that aims to detect BAOs within the next few years.
The project seeks the development of an experiment(s) to detect BAOs using the HI intensity mapping technique. One such proposed experiment, the BAO in Neutral Gas Observations (BINGO), is led by Manchester. You will play a key role in the development and implementation of BINGO, or other collaborative HI experiment, with the aim of making the first detection of BAOs at radio wavelengths. Your role will begin with instrumentation and will move to cosmological data analysis later.
You must also hold or be about to obtain a PhD in a relevant field, or have equivalent experience. You must possess excellent communication skills, and programming skills (e.g. C, Fortan, IDL) are essential, as is knowledge and experience of radio instrumentation. You should have some experience of designing or building instruments for radio astronomy applications. In particular, we are looking for experience with digital backends and/or software processing (e.g. with FPGAs).
For further information and to apply online please visit: www.manchester.ac.uk/jobs
Vacancy reference number: EPS-01720 Closing date: 4th January 2013.
The University of Manchester values a diverse workforce and welcomes applications from all sections of the community.
