Astrophysics and Experimental Physics - Postdoc at Strasbourg, IPHC

Postdoctoral position in KM3NeT/ORCA - IPHC-Strasbourg

(France)

IPHC is a pluridisciplinary institute, with around 120 researchers, 90 engineers and technicians, 90 PhD students, working in the areas of subatomic physics (70 physicists), chemistry and biology. In particular, the Department of Subatomic Researches (DRS) is involved, e.g., in nuclear studies, particle physics with existing (LHC) or planned facilities (ILC), but also neutrino physics (Double Chooz, JUNO) and astrophysics (ANTARES, KM3NeT). The Neutrino team is currently composed of 7 physicists and 2 PhD students, among which 3 physicists and 1 student are involved in GeV-PeV Neutrino Astronomy with participation to the analyses of the ANTARES neutrino telescope [http://antares.in2p3.fr] data and the preparation of KM3NeT. In particular, IPHC is leading the joint effort of searches for coincident emission of gravitational waves and high energy neutrinos using data from ANTARES and the LIGO/Virgo interferometers, which recently led to the neutrino follow-up of GW150914 discovered by LIGO [https://arxiv.org/abs/1602.05411].

ORCA (Oscillations Research with Cosmics in the Abyss) is the low-energy branch of KM3NeT [http://www.km3net.org], the next generation underwater Cherenkov neutrino detector in the Mediterranean. Its primary goal is to resolve the unsolved question whether the neutrino mass ordering is normal or inverted by measuring matter oscillation effects with atmospheric neutrinos. The ORCA design foresees a dense configuration of detection units, optimised for studying the interactions of neutrinos in seawater at low (< 100 GeV) energies. To be deployed at the French KM3NeT site in the coming years, ORCA's multi-PMT optical modules will exploit the excellent optical properties of deep seawater to accurately reconstruct both cascade (mostly electron neutrinos) and track events (mostly muon neutrinos) with a few GeV of energy. The IPHC team has been involved in ORCA since its beginning, with contributions to the first estimate[https://arxiv.org/abs/1301.4332] of its performance for the determination of the mass hierarchy and to the Letter of Intent [https://arxiv.org/abs/1601.07459] recently published.

The successful candidate, funded through the ANR project DAEMONS (Demonstrating the Ability of Establishing the Mass Ordering of Neutrinos in the Sea), will participate to the improvement of reconstruction methods for tracks and showers initiated by GeV neutrinos to enhance ORCA performances. Emphasis can also be put on the evaluation of performances of ORCA for the detection of low energy (MeV) neutrinos from supernovae, keeping in mind the objective of coincidences with gravitational wave detectors. Some technical developments related to the sensitivity of optical modules to UV light are also foreseen, a domain of interest for this dense undersea telescope.

The position will remain open until suitable candidates are found. Interested candidates are encouraged to apply before September 16^th, 2016. Applications should be sent by email (with subject “ORCA – postdoc position”) to Thierry PRADIER ; they should include a CV, a letter of motivation and the names of 3 referees.

Contact : Thierry PRADIER – thierry.pradier@iphc.cnrs.fr– skype : thierry.pradier