Numerical modeling of astrophysical transients with the open-science TARDIS collaboration

The TARDIS radiative transfer group (https://tardis-sn.github.io/) at Michigan State University (https://kerzendorf-lab.github.io/) is inviting applications to postdoctoral positions in aspects of astrophysical transient astrophysics. 

TARDIS group at Michigan State University

The TARDIS collaboration is actively applying and extending the Monte Carlo radiative-transfer open-science framework TARDIS (https://tardis-sn.github.io/) to model the physics of astrophysical transients.  The group has a specific focus on Type Ia progenitor problems, nucleosynthesis in neutron star mergers, progenitors of stripped core-collapse supernovae, and cosmology using Type IIP supernovae. 

We use data from current (ZTF, HST, JWST) and next-generation telescopes/surveys (LSST, WFIRST) to address scientific questions using machine learning and statistical methodology. Thus, the larger global TARDIS collaboration encompasses not only astrophysicists but also accomplished researchers in statistics, neural networks, and general machine learning. The group at MSU is jointly based in the Department of Physics and Astronomy as well as the new interdisciplinary Department of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering. 

Primary duties

The work of this postdoc will be to extend the microphysics of the TARDIS and then modeling observational data and publish the results. The group welcomes applicants to two postdoctoral positions for two different science cases:

• Conduct detailed studies on the physics of common envelope events in binary star systems with a specific emphasis on extending the TARDIS code to post-process hydro-simulations of these events providing synthetic spectra. 
• Study the very late phase of Type Ia supernova through nebular spectroscopy and light curve analysis. The project requires the addition of microphysics and comparison with recent ground-based and space-based spectral campaigns.

The position’s scientific output relies heavily on the TARDIS radiative transfer framework, and successful applicants will be expected to contribute to the construction/maintenance of the framework as well as leading the publication of results.