Contact: guy.perrin[AT]obspm.frLocation: Meudon, France
Applications are solicited for a post-doctoral position at Paris Observatory/LESIA in collaboration with LUTh, IAP to work on the detection of the pericenter shift of the star S2 at the Galactic Center and on the detection of a potential extended mass around the super-massive black hole. The offer is for one year, renewable for a second year on the basis of satisfactory performance. The contract should start in fall 2019, an earlier start can be considered.
GRAVITY has produced unprecedented results on the Galactic Center comprising the first ever direct detection of gravitational redshift around a super-massive black hole and the direct constrain of the size of a black hole down to a scale of 3.5 Schwarzschild radii. One of the next goals of the GRAVITY collaboration is the detection of the pericenter shift of S2 for a new test of general relativity and to explore invisible matter at the scale of the orbit and, later, the measurement of the spin of Sgr A*.
The goals of the offer are (1) to build a Kerr metric perturbed by an extended mass component, (2) to test the orbit of S2 against this metrics and detect its relativistic pericenter advance, (3) to constrain the extended mass in the black hole vicinity, (4) to prepare for the measurement of the spin of Sgr A* with the orbit of S2. The PDRA will participate to observation campaigns and data reduction/analysis. Check the link at the LESIA website (given below) for a more detailed description.
Applications are open to candidates of any nationality.
Candidates should provide:
a CV;
a letter of motivation;
a complete list of publications and a separate list of first-author publications;
the PhD certificate or, if not yet earned, the date of defense;
two reference letters.
Applications must be submitted electronically to guy.perrin[AT]obspm.fr.