DOCTORAL RESEARCH IN THEORETICAL ASTROPHYSICS

The Observatoire de Strasbourg (France) and the Section of Astrophysics of the Dept. of Physics of the University of Athens (Greece) are seeking a doctoral student to undertake a 3 year thesis on the subject of "Dissipative and radiative rotating MHD jets".

Active galactic nuclei and galactic "micro-quasars" emit powerful collimated outflows called jets. The general concept that such flows are rotating Magneto-Hydro-Dynamical winds (MHD winds) emitted by the close environment of a compact object, accreting black hole or neutron star, has emerged in the last ten years. These flows are likely to be self-collimated, and perhaps accelerated by Lorentz forces. The theory of non-dissipative, self-collimated, MHD winds has been developed in some detail, also by contributions by the proposing supervisors. Although these studies supported this general idea, the theory is not complete as long as radiative and dissipative effects, possibly associated to the development of instabilities in some regions of these flows, have not been taken into account. Such effects are important since they partly support the radiation of the jets and bear on their focusing and dynamical acceleration.

In this doctoral research, it is proposed to extend the study of astrophysical jets, both classical and relativistic, by self-consistently including in their description effects which are ignored by the standard perfect-MHD description, such as dissipation, radiative forces and heating. The proposed research is theoretical in character. It will involve analytical methods as well as numerical ones for solving the resulting equations, when this is not possible by other methods.

The level required is that of graduate studies. Applicants should have a 4 year university background in physics (or in mathematics and numerical methods) and a strong interest in modern astrophysics. They should provide a Curriculum Vitae (in english) where earlier studies and performances should be outlined, in particular those in relation with the proposed doctoral research (i.e. background in physics, fluid dynamics, numerical methods, astrophysics.)

Two confidential evaluation letters and a copy of the CV should be sent to each of the two supervisors in the addresses:

Applications shall be received from October 10th 2001 on. In order to optimize the use of the financial support offered by the program, a quick decision will be taken. A first round of examination of the applications will take place by late October 2001.

The doctoral student will be supported as a "Young Researcher" by the PLATON Network, which is one of the European Networks of the EEC program "Research and Training". This network gathers 8 european laboratories in the field of solar physics and astrophysical MHD. The program will come to an end by 31 July 2004, thus providing financial support only up to that date. The student will get a stipend of 1830 Euros net per month when in France, if certain conditions are met^¹, and about 1000 Euros per month when in Greece.

The rules of the "Research and Training" program, which aims at favouring mobility in Europe, are such that the doctorant should spend 1 year at the Observatoire de Strasbourg and 2 years at the Dept. of Physics of the University of Athens, while preparing his thesis. This thesis will be jointly supervised by Prs. J. Heyvaerts and K. Tsinganos, who are professors of Physics and Astrophysics at their respective Universities. The doctorate could be defended either at the University of Strasbourg, or at the University of Athens. Applicants should be reasonably fluent in the English language. Also, he/she should be neither Greek nor French but of an EEC nationality and should not have spent more than 12 months of the two years before the start of the contract in the country where he/she gets the contract.

1 Namely, this is valid for a stay in France shorter than 12 monthes, if the student has never previously received a salary or a grant in France. Otherwise, the net stipend would be of about 1300 Euros per month.