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The workplace is the Institut de Planétologie et d'Astrophysique de Grenoble (IPAG UGA). Around 170 people work at IPAG, including 60 scientists and professors, 30 engineers, technicians, administrative staff and 70 fixed-term contracts, including around 20 post-docs and 30 PhD students. Our research topics cover the formation of stellar and planetary systems, from the initial phases of gravitational collapse, through the physics and chemistry of protostellar disks, to the study of exoplanets. We also work on accretion-ejection processes in young stellar objects and compact objects.
Our activities include laboratory measurements, high-performance computing, and the design and operation of cutting-edge instruments for space missions and ground-based telescopes, notably for the future European Extremely Large Telescope (ELT). https://ipag.osug.fr/
You will join the ANR IRYSS project funded and hosted at UGA, which aims to study the inner regions of protoplanetary disks using optical interferometry. The project is led by Karine Perraut at the Institut de Planétologie et d'Astrophysique de Grenoble (IPAG, France).
The team is made up of a dozen researchers from IPAG and the Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et en Planétologie (IRAP, Toulouse), a UGA post-doctoral fellow and 6 external partners from international institutes.

You will contribute to an ANR-funded research project aimed at exploiting archival observations of young stars obtained with the Gravity instrument of the VLTI interferometer, as well as other instruments (PIONIER, MATISSE), to constrain the structure of inner protoplanetary disks.
One part of the study is devoted to modeling the static structure of the inner disk, while a second will focus on the study of morphological variability. You will be working mainly on this second aspect.
You will be responsible for modeling interferometric observations with time-varying emission morphologies, using parametric and radiative transfer models adapted to the main expected sources of variability. These instabilities can be caused by thermal waves, streaming instabilities, gravitational distortions induced by the passage of massive stellar or planetary companions, as well as winds associated with accretion or ejection phases.
Time-varying analytical models will draw on state-of-the-art radiative transfer simulations provided by several collaborators. We will use 3D radiative hydrodynamic models of inner disks subjected to different types of instabilities to generate reference images for comparison with the data.

• Identify interferometric data showing signs of temporal variability
• Recover complementary data (photometry, adaptive optics, millimetric imaging, etc.)
• Parametrically model time-varying morphology
• Perform an in-depth search for companions in interferometric data
• Establish constraints or detection limits on the presence of internal deformations, density waves, gaps, from images derived from radiative transfer models

• Python programming
• Expertise in interferometric data analysis required
• Experience in numerical modeling welcome
• Ability to work in a team

To be included with your CV: a list of publications, a brief statement of research interests describing your abilities and motivations for the position, three letters of recommendation. Funds are available for computing, publications, missions and other needs.

Background in physics or astronomy; expertise in interferometric data analysis required and numerical modeling experience welcome.