Postdoctoral Fellow - Time-domain science WST

Postdoctoral Fellow - Time-domain science with WST

Datum: 20 juni, 2025 Tid: 11:59

Placering ESO

ESO astronomers are participating in the design of a new facility, the Wide-field Spectroscopic Telescope (WST), an innovative 12-m class wide-field spectroscopic telescope with simultaneous operation of a large field-of-view (3 sq. degree) and high multiplex (30,000) multi-object spectrograph facility with both medium and high resolution modes (MOS), and a giant panoramic (3x3 sq. arcmin) integral field spectrograph (IFS). The WST project is a research and innovation action funded by the EU's Horizon Europe programme (under agreement number  (WST)).

Under this agreement, ESO is offering a postdoctoral researcher the opportunity to work on time-domain science with WST. Time-domain astronomy is a key component of WST's science drivers, and thus, it is being built into WST from the start. This includes the generation and ingestion of a spectroscopic alert stream, which aims to report on spectral changes, like variations in emission or absorption lines or changes in the continuum, among others.

The development of this alert stream will be conducted in the context of the WST time-domain working group (led by Richard Anderson - EPFL, Cyrielle Opitom - University of Edinburgh, and Paula Sanchez Saez - ESO), whose aim is to maximize the information offered by WST time-resolved observations, enabling breakthrough science across all scales, from Solar System Objects to Cosmology, and offering a major opportunity for serendipitous discoveries.

In this context, the postdoctoral fellow will work for one year on the definition and characterization of the WST spectroscopic alert stream.