Left: fingering convection simulation (Brown et al. 2013). Right: Convection test (Hurlburt et al. 1984)
Subject:
Testing fingering convection in compressible hydrodynamics for the study of exoplanet atmospheres
Duration:
5-6 months at Maison de la Simulation, CEA Paris-Saclay, France. Indicative start: Mars 2018. Advisor: Pascal Tremblin (Personal Website).
Context & Role:
The successful candidate will develop and run High Performance Computing (HPC) simulations of fingering convection (stratified hydrodynamics with mean-molecular-weight instabilities) within the ERC Project ATMO. The target application is fingering convection triggered by chemical transitions (e.g. CO/CH\(_4\), see this page) in the atmosphere of brown dwarfs and non-irradiated exoplanets (Tremblin et al. 2016). The goal of the internship is to implement a series of tests of the fingering-convective instability in a stratified compressible atmosphere with an unstable mean-molecular-weight gradient. The tests will follow what has already been done in the literature for standard overturning atmospheric convection (Hurlburt et al. 1984) and will pave the way for the brown dwarf and exoplanet applications.
He/she will be part of the ATMO team at Maison de la Simulation and will also work in collaboration with astrophysicists at the Department of Astrophysics at CEA and collaborators in the international scientific community. He/she will have the opportunity to work on production level HPC codes running on the most powerful supercomputers.
Required skills :
- Master or equivalent in Astrophysics or HPC
- Operational knowledge of techniques and programming language (Fortran90, C or C++) for application development
- Skills to work in a team
Application:
To apply, please send a CV and a motivation letter to pascal.tremblin[at]cea.fr.
All applications arriving before 15th of December 2017 will receive full consideration. Later applications will be considered until the position is filled.