Missions

The NESTAR (“Noyaux Exotiques Structure et Astrophysique par Réactions”) team at Laboratoire de Physique des Deux Infinis Irène Joliot-Curie (IJCLab) at Orsay, France is inviting applications for a position of postdoctoral researcher. Our activities are focused on the measurement of direct nuclear reactions induced by radioactive beams (RIB) with main focus on RIB produced at GANIL by the ISOL (SPIRAL facility) or in-flight (LISE spectrometer) methods and at RIKEN.
We are constructing, within an international collaboration, a state-of-the-art Silicon strip array GRIT. Its phase 0 will be coupled with AGATA and VAMOS at GANIL in 2029 and take advantage of the radioactive beams produced by the Spiral1 facility. The scientific program covers nuclear structure, unbound nuclei, clustering in nuclei and nuclear astrophysics.
In this framework, we have obtained an ANR grant to develop an 3He cryogenic target that will open new to investigate the atomic nuclei via the transfer reactions (3He,d) and (3He,p). It will be put into service during the AGATA-GRIT-VAMOS campaign.
This is a fixed term two-year appointment starting on August 1st 2025 or as soon as possible thereafter.

Activités

The successful candidate will be stationed at Orsay and will participate to tests and experiments at GANIL in the framework of the ANR but also of the MUGAST campaign lead by our group.
She/he will be in charge of the test of the new window material and the set-up of the de-icing protocol on the cryogenic test bench of IJCLab. He/she will collaborate with the cryogenic group of IJCLab to find technical solutions and provide a link with the physics specifications. She/he will prepare the beam test of the target to validate it.
The candidate will also be in charge of developing the simulation codes as much detailed as possible to simulate the physics cases and validate the technical choices. The simulations will be performed using the NPTool package.
In additon, the successful candidate will analyze data from the MUGAST campaign about pairing in N=Z nuclei of the fp-shell. The goal is study the competition between neutron-proton pairing (part already analyzed) and the neutron-neutron pairing in 48Cr via the two-nucleon transfer (p,t). The extracted angular distributions will be compared with DWBA calculations performed with FRESCO. The competition of pairing with alpha clustering may also be an extension of this study. It is expected that the results will be published in international peer-reviewed journals and presented in conferences.

Compétences

Eligible candidates must have a PhD in experimental nuclear physics obtained since less than two years or expect to defend their PhD before the start of the appointment.
The position requires the capacity of independent work in both hardware and software and good teamwork skills. No specific expertise in cryogenics is expected but a taste for experiment is appreciated.
The work requires programming knowledge in C++ and experience with the ROOT and GEANT4 analysis framework.

Contexte de travail

The Irène Joliot-Curie Physics Laboratory of 2 Infinities (IJCLab) is a UMR under the supervision of the CNRS (IN2P3), the University of Paris-Saclay and the University of Paris. It is located on the campus of the University of Paris -Saclay in Orsay, which lies 20 km south of Paris and is easily accessible by RER in 35 minutes.
IJCLab was founded in 2020 from the merger of five laboratories (CSNSM, IMNC, IPN, LAL, LPT). The staff is composed of nearly 560 permanent personnel and approximately 200 non-permanent personnel including 120 doctoral students. The research themes of the laboratory are nuclear physics, high energy physics, theoretical physics, astroparticles, astrophysics and cosmology, particle accelerators, energy and the environment and health. IJCLab has very significant technical capacities (around 280 engineers and technicians) in all the major fields required to design, develop / implement the experimental devices necessary for its scientific activity.
The NESTAR team includes 11 physicists (permanent researchers, post-docs and doctoral students) studying nuclear structure and nuclear astrophysics using reactions.

Le poste se situe dans un secteur relevant de la protection du potentiel scientifique et technique (PPST), et nécessite donc, conformément à la réglementation, que votre arrivée soit autorisée par l'autorité compétente du MESR.

Contraintes et risques

Frequent travel to GANIL (Caen).
Work under radiation