Science Engineer for test and calibration activities for the IXPE satellite

A call is open for the assignment of one postdoctoral research grant of the duration of 1 year, with a possible extension, entitled: “Test and calibration activities for the Scientific Instrument onboard IXPE”. The selection will be carried out on the basis of the applicants’ qualifications, possibly integrated by an interview.

IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer) is a NASA SMall EXplorer (SMEX) mission approved in January 2017. The IXPE collaboration includes the Italian Space Agency (ASI), the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF), the Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN) and the Roma Tre University.

IXPE will launch in April 2021 to perform polarization measurements of celestial sources emitting at X-rays with unprecedented detail, more than forty years after the last orbital polarimeter onboard the OSO-8 satellite. Data collected in the first two years of the mission will allow to deeply investigate the nature of the X-ray emission from accreting black holes, pulsars and neutron stars in binary systems.

The Italian collaboration, including Cagliari Astronomical Observatory (OAC), is responsible for the scientific instrument on board IXPE, comprising the onboard computer and the detectors.

In this context, the post-doc will be involved in the following activities:

• Integration, Testing and Calibration of the instrument;
• Development of the Ground Software Pipeline supporting tests and calibration during the instrument development phase;
• Development of the Ground Software Pipeline for data analysis during the operational phase;
• Development of performance models (sensitivity, dead time, energy resolution).

Further questions on the scientific project can be addressed to Alessio Trois (e-mail: [email protected]).