About this job

The European Gravitational Observatory (EGO) is seeking a motivated physicist/engineer to join its Noise and Controls team. EGO is a French-Italian consortium founded by INFN and CNRS to foster European collaboration in gravitational wave research. EGO is located in Cascina, near Pisa – Italy, and hosts and operates the gravitational wave detector Virgo, a 3 km-long laser interferometer. Virgo and the two LIGO ITFs in the US are the most large and sensitive gravitational-wave detecting instruments in the world: in 2017 their joint detection of a binary neutron star merger ushered the dawn of Multi-Messenger Astronomy. The Virgo detector involves the collaboration of about 25 laboratories with more than 300 scientists, engineers and technicians in France, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Hungary and Spain.

Responsibilities

The selected candidate will work as an Applied Physicist in the Noise & Controls team of the EGO ITF Technology Department and she/he will collaborate with other EGO teams and Virgo collaboration members. In general she/he will work in the contest of the AdV+ project, during the installation and commissioning phases. In particular, she/he will work mainly on:

• follow up the upgrade works of the experimental area air conditioning system aimed to the mitigation of acoustic and vibration noise;
• evaluation and mitigation of noise emissions of new ITF components and equipment;
• characterize the environmental noise at the site (i.e. sounds and vibrations, EM fields) and evaluate how it affects the detector;
• develop models to simulate how the noise couples to the detector and provide noise projections;
• propose and evaluate solutions to attenuate either the noise at its source or the coupling to the detector;
• setting-up and use of instrumentation and analysis tools for noise characterization, including mobile sensors array.

The post requires that the selected candidate sometimes work outside of normal working hours, including nights, weekends and public holidays, and may require shift work. It may happen to cope with technically difficult situations, and to work within strict deadlines.

Profile

Essential required qualifications:

• Physicist or Engineer with a minimum 5-year academic title (master degree or equivalent);
• knowledge of working principles and basic usage of environmental sensors (such magnetometers, microphones, seismometers) and laboratory equipment;
• knowledge of signal analysis and basics of control system theory;
• knowledge of Python and Matlab programming languages and basics of UNIX/LINUX operating system;
• genuine scientific curiosity to pursue the understanding of the unknown and unexpected;
• capacity to collaborate efficiently with colleagues from different countries and a good sense of team spirit;
• good knowledge of English.

Desired qualifications and experience:

One or more of the following will be an asset:

• experience with Multi-physics Simulation Software (or equivalent);
• experience in control system operation and design;
• working knowledge of Italian and/or French.

General requirements:

• No criminal convictions
• Driving license

One-year (renewable for one year) with the perspective of a permanent contract. Gross salary will range between 38500E and 49700E. Additional benefits include Severance Pay (roughly 1 month salary per year of contract, granted to the employee at the end of the contract) and yearly performance bonus.