Astronomical Observatory of the University of Warsaw invites candidates for PhD studies at the Doctoral School of Exact and Natural Sciences of the University of Warsaw
Astronomical Observatory of the University of Warsaw is the leading astronomical institution in Poland. It has a high world position in the field of large-scale photometric observations of the sky thanks to the OGLE and ASAS projects carried out for over twenty years. Our staff is also actively involved in such world renowned projects as HESS and CTA (high energy observations), LIGO/VIRGO (gravitational waves) and satellite missions such as Gaia (mass astrometry, transient phenomena).
Ph.D. students at the Observatory have the opportunity to work with excellent scientific staff and to actively participate in projects carried out by the Observatory or within international cooperation. They publish their papers in top astronomical journals and present their results at international scientific conferences.
According to the new Law on Higher Education and Science, from 2019 astronomical doctoral studies at the University of Warsaw take place within the framework of the Doctoral School of Exact and Natural Sciences and last for 4 years. PhD students are entitled (by law) to a scholarship of min. PLN 2667 gross in the first two years of studies and PLN 4110 in the following two years, after successfully passing the mid-term evaluation. The Observatory declares to increase the scholarship for students admitted in the 2023 recruitment process up to the amount of min. PLN 4000/4500 gross per month in the first/second two-year period, respectively. It may also be possible to receive independent co-financing from projects conducted by supervisors.
Candidates interested in pursuing doctoral studies are asked to contact potential supervisors according to the list of proposed topics below. The registration of applications starts May 8th and ends June 19th. The full schedule and detailed instructions can be found on the Doctoral School enrolment page
The details of the enrollment process and the amount of scholarship for positions financed from external grants will be given separately. We encourage early contact and discussion with the prospective supervisors.
One of the key goals of astrophysics is understanding how planetary systems form. Understanding planet formation requires finding exoplanets including the ones that are similar to those known in the Solar System. Massive planets in the Solar System are on orbits that are too wide to discover similar exoplanets using transit or radial velocity techniques. Planets on orbits similar to Uranus and Neptune are the hardest to be found. However, similar planets are found using the gravitational microlensing technique, which also allows finding free-floating planets, i.e., the ones that do not orbit any star. Both wide-orbit and free-floating planets have already been found by the OGLE survey that is run by astronomers from the University of Warsaw and observes microlensing events for almost 30 years.
The successful applicant will be working on analysis of existing data (mainly from the OGLE survey), planning and conducting follow-up ground-based observations, and planning observations of the future NASA satellite – the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.
Astrophysics with decihertz gravitational wave observatories
The current gravitational wave detectors work in the high frequency range i.e. 50-1000Hz, the planned satellite observatory will work in the miliHertz range. The intermediate region may be explored by the proposed projects like DECIGO, BBO, or by the Lunar observatory LGWS.
The project will be based on exploring the scientific potential of these observatories working alone, or together with terrestial experiments.
Gravitational waves from merging binaries are standard sirens, that
allow cosmological measurements. The project will be devoted to investigation of the methods of inferring cosmological parameters using the data from the current observatories like LIGO/Virgo as well as the future ones – like LISA, Cosmic Explorer or ET.
Numerical simulation of astrophysical sources of gravitational waves
Supervisor: dr hab. Dorota Rosińska, prof. UW (drosinska at astrouw.edu.pl)
As part of the doctoral studies, it is proposed to conduct research in dynamically developing field – Gravitational Wave Astronomy Gravitational Wave Astronomy, which was born in 2015 with the first detection of gravitational waves from the coalescence of two massive stellar GW150914 black holes. This groundbreaking discovery was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics two years later. Binary systems of neutron stars and black holes, rotating neutron stars and supernovae explosions are the strongest sources of gravitational waves for LIGO-VIRGO-KAGRA detectors and the third-generation Einstein Telescope.
Successful candidate will study the properties of these sources using relativistic numerical codes. In particular it is proposed to model differentially rotating hot neutron stars which are one of the possible remnants of the coalescence of neutron stars in binary systems or during the collapse of the nucleus of a massive star during a supernova explosion.
It will be also possible to take part in the search for gravitational waves from different astrophysical sources by analyzing data from from VIRGO/LIGO detectors within the Virgo-POLGRAW research group. The projects are conducted in cooperation with research centers in, among others, France, Italy, Greece, Spain and the USA.
Properties of compact binaries originating from globular clusters as
sources of gravitational waves
Supervisor: dr hab. Dorota Rosińska, prof. UW (drosinska at astrouw.edu.pl)
A significant part of pulsating red giants exhibit additional variability called the long secondary period (LSP). This variability is thought to be
due to the star being in a binary system, in which the companion is a former planet that accreted some matter lost by the giant.
The goal of this project is to analyze photometric and spectroscopic observations of LSP stars and perform hydrodynamical modelling in order to verify this hypothesis. The project is a part of an ERC grant “A MISTery of Long Secondary Periods in Pulsating Red Giants – Traces of Exoplanets?” (LSP-MIST).
The candidate for the project should have advanced programming skills.
The scholarship will be financed by the ERC grant of the supervisor.
The Milky Way bulge is the closest bulge of a spiral galaxy that we can study. Yet there are fundamental problems with measuring basic parameters of the Galactic bulge such as total stellar mass, mass to light ratio, or initial mass function. Most stellar mass is in low-mass stars and the fraction of low-mass stars is unknown. Low-mass binary systems are very hard to study if they are at a distance of dozens of thousand light-years. Understanding the structure of the Galactic bulge requires knowledge of statistics of the binary systems: their relative fraction, distribution of mass ratios, and distribution of separations. However, these statistics can be studied using the gravitational microlensing technique, which is most sensitive to the low-mass stars. Hundreds of binary microlensing events have already been found by the OGLE microlensing survey.
The main task of a successful applicant will be the analysis of existing ground-based data, mainly from the OGLE survey. Other tasks will be chosen later based on the applicant’s interests. These tasks could be planning and conducting additional ground-based observations or constructing models of the Galactic bulge.
The scholarship will be financed by the SONATA BIS grant for the supervisor.
