PhD position: Prof Ilya Mandel

I am interested in all aspects of theoretical astrophysics, with a particular focus on strong gravitational fields, compact objects, and gravitational-wave astronomy.  I am currently  exploring the evolution of massive binary stars into compact binaries as sources of gravitational-waves and astrophysical inference on gravitational-wave observations.  My research group on massive binary evolution -- also known as Team COMPAS -- includes a number of amazing undergraduate and graduate students, postdocs, alumni, and other fantastic collaborators. Please contact me if you are interested in joining our group!

Possible projects involve massive stellar binaries, gravitational-wave data analysis, astrostatistics, dynamics in galactic centres and globular clusters, probes of general relativity in the strong-field regime, tidal disruption events, kilonovae and gamma ray burst afterglows.  Some examples include:

• What do the spins of merging black holes tell us about binary evolution?
• Where are low-mass X-ray binaries formed?
• Why does the velocity distribution of hypervelocity stars ejected from the Galactic centre not match expectations?
• How are the birth masses and natal kicks of neutron stars and black holes determined by the collapsing massive stars?
• When do binary interactions give rise to luminous red novae?

web page

For further details or alternative project arrangements, please contact: ilya_DOT_mandel_AT_monash_DOT_edu .