PhD position in Nice on the stochastic background of gravitational waves

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Tania Regimbau
Posts: 1
Joined: July 15 2008
Affiliation: CNRS-Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur
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PhD position in Nice on the stochastic background of gravita

Post by Tania Regimbau » July 16 2008

Dear all,

A Phd position is available at the Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur in Nice (France). The candidate must be from the European Union or Switzerland. The grant is quite prestigious but also very selective and the candidate must be younger than 25 years old and have graduated with honors. The deadline to apply is september 2008.

Please see the announcement below:

The gravitational wave stochastic background: modeling and detection of non gaussian regimes

Einstein theory of gravitation predicts the existence of gravitational waves propagating through space-time at the speed of light, like ripples on the surface of water.
These waves can be generated when masses move or interact, and could be observed if the masses are large enough, for instance when two dense stars or black holes coalesce.
The superposition of all the sources of gravitational waves since the Big Bang produces a stochastic background, which could be detected by cross-correlating two (or more) detectors, such as the interferometers Virgo near Pisa in Italy or LIGO in the US, or LISA in space.
We can distinguish between two contributions to the stochastic background: a background from cosmological origin, memory of the early stages of the Universe, just a fraction of second after the Big Bang, and a background of astrophysical origin, memory of the evolution of the galaxies and star formation.
The current detection methods assume that the stochastic background is Gaussian. The purpose of this thesis is to model the gravitational stochastic background, study its statistical properties and develop a detection method for non Gaussian stochastic backgrounds. Such backgrounds could have been produced for instance by cusps of cosmic strings, or by astrophysical populations such as compact binary coalescences or core collapses to black holes or neutron stars. This method could also be extended to the case when the stochastic backgrounds are not isotropic.

Contact : [Log in to view email]

Best regards,

Tania Regimbau

www.oca.eu/regimbau

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