The Max Plack Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute) in Hannover, Germany is seeking highly motivated students, postdocs and scientists with a strong interest and, for more senior positions, adequate experience in precision interferometry, inertial sensing, analog and digital electronic and/or space technology.
The Department for Precision Interferometry and Fundamental Interactions has been established in August 2022 with the appointment of Prof. Dr. Guido Müller. We are now ramping up our personnel at all levels to work on several challenging research projects associated with LISA, a space-based gravitational wave observatory aimed at detecting gravitational waves in the mHz frequency range. The planned projects will be part of the following two overarching projects:
The LISA hardware-in-the-loop testbed:
This testbed will generate as realistic LISA-like signals as possible to test the entire data analysis pipeline from photons to source parameters. It is based on digital delay lines which will be implemented using modern digital signal processing systems including FPGAs. The optical front ends will include LISA-like lasers, frequency stabilization, laser phase locking and phase modulation systems.
Beyond LISA:
As LISA is moving into the industrial phase to be launched in the mid 2030’s, it is now time to explore different approaches for future space-based gravitational wave observatories beyond LISA. The design space for these missions is currently wide open but needs to close in this decade to enable the submission of realistic ‘Beyond LISA’ proposals for a launch in the 2050s.
The successful applicants will work on individual projects within one of these larger activities. Due to the similarity of the work, we also expect that the applicant will also be able to contribute to LISA itself.
If you are interested, please follow our central link for open positions https://www.aei.mpg.de/990555/jobs in our department.
If your experience or future goals does not fit one of these job descriptions but you believe you could contribute to these exciting projects or LISA itself, please submit your CV with a short statement why we should be interested in you to jobs.pifi(at)aei.mpg.de.
We currently have many openings and one that matches your experiences and interests might already be in the queue.