RedH0T: ERC-funded position on the Hubble Tension : Water masers

Postdoctoral positions are offered in relation to a new ERC Synergy Grant RedH0T “Red-Teaming the Hubble Tension”. The ultimate goal is to determine whether the Hubble tension arises from observational issues or from limitations of the current cosmological paradigm, using the synergies between all available cosmological probes. The 4 PIs are Licia Verde and Frédéric Courbin (Barcelona, Spain), Adam Riess (Johns Hopkins, USA), Julien Lesgourgues (RWTH Aachen, Germany).

This specific offer is in relation with distance measurements with water megamasers and has the University of Barcelona as its main base.

The candidate should have expertise in radio data analysis, and ideally with VLBI observations. The goal is to discover new water masers from existing and future single-dish data and to conduct and analyze VLBI monitoring campaigns of the best masers to determine distances to galaxies in the Hubble flow.  Additional expertise with optical interferometry (e.g., VLTI) would be a plus. The main contact is Frédéric Courbin, but close collaboration is expected with Dom Pesce and Mark Reid at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics as well as with Andrea Tarchi in Sardinia and Christian Henkel in Bonn/Effelsberg. 

Candidates should be motivated by carrying out collaborative work in a large interconnected topics, in a constructive way and often beyond their own field of expertise.

The position is initially for 1 year, renewable up to a total of 3 years, along with generous travel funds. Access to ample CPU and GPU time is guaranteed by the project.