Contact: greifenk[aT]illinois.eduLocation: Urbana, Illinois USA
Applications are invited for a postdoctoral research position in the Illinois Relativity Group. The candidate should have expertise in numerical relativity and relativistic astrophysics. Some experience in computational hydrodynamics and/or computational MHD would be desirable.
Applicants should go online at https://my.physics.illinois.edu/join/ to submit their application, which must include a cover letter, curriculum vitae, list of publications, brief description of research interests, and the names, mailing and email addresses of three references. Please contact Elisabeth Greifenkamp at greifenk@illinois.edu if you have any questions. Applications should be posted by DEC 1, 2019 for full consideration. The starting date of the position is AUG 15, 2020.
The successful applicant will join Professor Stuart Shapiro in developing and applying the tools of numerical relativity and computational hydrodynamics, MHD, and stellar dynamics to tackle diverse problems in general relativity and astrophysics. Recent topics include the inspiral and coalescence of compact binaries, the generation of gravitational waves, magnetized neutron stars, magnetorotational stellar collapse, accretion onto isolated and binary black holes, the formation and cosmological growth of supermassive black holes in the early universe, and the dynamics of dark matter halos and spikes around black holes. Some of this work is geared to identifying astrophysically plausible, strong-field sources of gravitational waves and calculating gravitational waveforms detectable by LIGO/VIRGO, KAGRA, LISA and the PTA. For these “multimessenger” sources we are also exploring counterpart electromagnetic signals, including gamma-ray bursts and kilonovae, as well as neutrinos.
In addition to Professor Shapiro, the Illinois Relativity Group includes Professors Nicolas Yunes and Helvi Witek, their postdocs, PhD and undergraduate research students. It maintains close interactions with colleagues in Physics, Astronomy and NCSA, in addition to several outside collaborators.