There is a fully funded 4-year PhD position in the group of Tijs Karman at Radboud University Nijmegen (the Netherlands). This project will be co-supervised by Piotr Zuchowski at UMK Torun (Poland), and mentored by Iouli Gordon (Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian)

This position is part of the PHYMOL: Physics, Accuracy and Machine Learning: Towards the next-generation of Molecular Potentials MSCA Doctoral Network.

 

Project background and description:
In this project you will compute collision-induced absorption spectra for molecules of interest to atmospheric and exoplanetary science. Collision-induced absorption is the process where a pair of colliding molecules absorbs light during a collision, due to the dipole moment induced by the interaction between the molecules. Collision-induced absorption is typically weak and therefore can be difficult to measure in the laboratory. This motivates our approach to compute these spectra. In atmospheres, due to the large number of molecules, collision-induced absorption is nevertheless important for both measurements (sensing) and for atmospheric modeling (e.g. greenhouse effect). Typical atmospheric molecules are non-polar, meaning single-molecule absorption is forbidden and collision-induced absorption relatively more important.
In this project, you will compute absorption spectra for the many collision complexes that planetary scientists need data for, including typical molecules including H2, He, N2, O2, CO2, CH4. [Karman et al. Icarus 328 160 (2019) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2019.02.034] For an example of calculations on collision-induced absorption spectra, see [Karman et al. Nature Chemistry 10 549 (2018) https://doi.org/10.1038/s41557-018-0015-x]

 

You will compute collision induced absorption spectra (with Tijs Karman) based on ab initio computed intermolecular interactions and dipole functions (with Piotr Zuchowski) and incorporate such spectra into the HITRAN database (with Iouli Gordon). You will also benefit from being part of the large PHYMOL doctoral network, which involves 11 PhD students working at 15 institutions in the broad area of intermolecular interactions.

 

PHYMOL is funded under the EU’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme Marie Sklodowska-Curie Doctoral Networks (2021) call [Grant Agreement no. 101073474] and by the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Horizon Europe funding guarantee [Grant Number: EP/X036863/1] totalling approx. 2.6m euros.

 

Applications are being accepted now and the application process can be found on the PHYMOL website in the Recruitment page (phymol.eu). Interested applicants are encouraged to follow these instructions, and also to get directly in touch with Tijs Karman ([email protected]) and prof. Piotr Zuchowski ([email protected])

 

Links:
Tijs Karman (advisor)
[email protected]
https://www.theochem.ru.nl/~tkarman/
https://www.theochem.ru.nl (group)
https://www.ru.nl/imm/ (department / institute)

 

Piotr Zuchowski (co-advisor)
[email protected]
https://www.molintlab.com/

 

Iouli Gordon (mentor)
https://pweb.cfa.harvard.edu/people/iouli-gordon

 

PHYMOL Doctoral network:
phymol.eu (information and to apply)