The official advertisment:(Narrative summary at the end)I.
Keywords:large-scale cosmic ray correlations, the cosmo-seismic phenomenon, dark matter.
II. Description: A person employed as an adjunct (post-doc) for a fixed period up to 33 Months at the Department of Cosmic Ray Research and Neutrino Studies – NZ15 at IFJ PAN will be obliged to participate in work on research topics and projects implemented and planned for the nearest period at the NZ15 Department, within the Cosmic Ray Extremely Distributed Observatory (CREDO), in the field of experimental multi-messenger astrophysics.
The basic tasks of the employed person will include:participation in data analysis;conducting simulations;dissemination of the research results in the form of publications in leading scientific journals indexed in the JCR and speeches during seminars and conferences, including international ones.
This person will also be obliged to apply for external funding for research.
III. Required qualifications:doctor degree in physical sciences or related disciplines: mathematics, chemistry, physical chemistry, electronics, or material science,scientific achievements documented by publications in prestigious international scientific journals,knowledge of the research topics and current activity in the field of astroparticle physics,experience in the analysis of experimental data,ability to work in a team,very good knowledge of spoken and written English.
Welcome:experience in programming in Python,experience in using and modifying standard programs for simulating the propagation and interactions of cosmic rays.
Narrative summary: The Cosmic Ray Extremely Distributed Observatory (CREDO) (https://credo.science/) is an international collaboration aiming at searching for large scale correlations of cosmic rays.
The CREDO strategy is based on operating a global network of cosmic-ray detectors of various sizes and diverse technologies in order to reach sensitivity to cosmic ray ensembles (CRE): groups of correlated cosmic particles (including photons) that might have energies spanning the whole energy spectrum of cosmic rays.
Until recently, cosmic ray research has been focused on detecting single air showers, while the search for ensembles of cosmic rays, which may spread over a significant fraction of the Earth surface, is a scientificterra incognita.
The key idea of CREDO is to combine existing cosmic ray detectors (large professional arrays, educational instruments, local networks, individual detectors such as smartphones, etc.) into a worldwide network, thus enabling a global analysis.
One of the recent successes of CREDO is an observation of a statistically solid (on the level of six sigma) correlation between the global seismic activity and changes in the intensity of cosmic radiation recorded at the surface of our planet, dubbed the cosmo-seismic effect (P.
Homola, et al.
(CREDO Collaboration), J.
Atmos. Sol.-Terr. Phys ). The relationship is physically intriguing: the available astrophysical and geophysical paradigms do not point to a plausible conventional scenario which would explain the phenomenon without an external steering factor capable of affecting both cosmic radiation, and seismicity.
If the existence of such a factor is confirmed, we will witness a game-changing impact on science, even beyond astrophysics.
The newly open job position creates a unique opportunity of being at the very center of a fascinating science adventure: the quest for the understanding of the cosmo-seismic puzzle.
