IUCAA Recruitment 2023

LIGO-India detector will require frequency-stabilised input lasers. The present LIGO detectors in the USA operate
at 1064 nm wavelength, which is likely to be changed to 1500 nm or 2-micron wavelengths in future upgrades. Keeping
that in mind, we plan to indigenise the Extended Cavity Diode Laser System: which incorporates opto-mechanical
assembly of the ECDL, its drivers, and master control. We plan to design the opto-mechanical system, electronic
hardware, and control system as wavelength independent such that we can use it for any laser diode wavelengths
for its specific package(s). For that purpose, IUCAA is looking for a highly motivated JRF candidate with basic
knowledge in atomic physics, laser physics, geometrical optics, and electronics. Hands-on experience in
instrumentation will be useful.

Gravitational-wave (GW) data analysis includes detection of GW signals from the data obtained at the
observatories. This project will focus on the successful deployment of all the search and the parameter estimation
pipelines currently used by the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA (LVK) collaboration for gravitational-wave (GW) searches and
astrophysics. The search pipelines will include filtering data with waveform templates of merging black holes and
neutron stars as well as generic search for GW transients with minimal assumption of the source and signal
morphology. Search for periodic GW signatures from rotating neutron stars and GW background of cosmological or
astrophysical origin are of utmost importance.

Detections of gravitational waves very much depend on the sensitivity of the instrument, how long the detectors
can stay online without major interruptions, well-understood noise properties, accurate calibration of the data
and so on. This is enabled by Detector characterisation which is a major and crucial activity of the LVK
collaboration. It involves tasks such as sharing the data quality information in order to avoid/exclude bad data,
veto false positives and enable candidate follow-up for gravitational wave searches. Additional tasks include
validating the quality of the data around the time of candidate gravitational wave event detections. Many
specialised software and infrastructure has been developed to facilitate detector characterisation. For example,
iDQ, GW-DetChar, GWSumm, HVeto, UPV and Gravity Spy.

Extending the sensitivity of the gravitational wave detectors in the low frequency regime is one of the areas of
research being actively pursued at IUCAA as well as globally within the LIGO Scientific Collaboration. Our goal
is to develop novel isolator designs, seismic sensors, actuators, advanced signal and data processing techniques
and control system architectures to improve the attenuation of ground motion effects on suspended optics. The work
is highly multidisciplinary, spanning mechanical engineering, electronics and communication engineering, data
analysis, instrumentation and control systems in addition to basic physics of high precision measurements.
Applicants with a strong background in experimental physics and electro-mechanical engineering are encouraged to
apply. The selected candidate would have the opportunity to work with the global gravitational wave community in
this domain.