MOLECULAR UNIVERSE

Expertise in Research and Complementarity
The team of the Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de l'Observatoire de Grenoble (LAOG) is lead by Dr C. Ceccarelli (CC), with strong support from Dr. P. Valiron (PV). The main research goal of the team is the observations and interpretation of the molecular emission in astronomical sources. The strength of the group is the presence of expertise in the several fields needed to extract astrophysical information from observed astronomical spectra, including ``astrophysical'' modelers (developing astrophysical models to derive physical information from observed spectra) and ``molecular'' modelers (developing molecular models required to derive collisional excitation coefficients). The group participates in many major European Astronomical Projects, with a leading role in the HIFI consortium. Furthermore the group is also involved in the European poject ALMA, again with key responsibilities, notably on the student training program. CC has wide experience in the analysis and modelling of millimeter to far infrared spectra of astronomical sources, and in particular in the Star Formation field. She graduated in 1982 in Rome, became staff member of the IFSI (Rome) in 1986, was NASA Ames Associate in 1992-1994, member of the Long Wavelength Spectrometer consortium (with the role of Project Manager of the On Board Software) on board the European Infrared Space Observatory, and she is the coordinator of the HIFI Star Formation Program. She joined LAOG in 2002, after three years at the Observatory of Bordeaux. PV has wide experience in theoretical molecular astrophysics. After a PhD and a ``Thèse d'Etat'' in Bordeaux, he joined LAOG in 1981. His main field of expertise is ab-initio quantum chemistry for high accuracy modeling of weak intermolecular interactions, where he developed new methods to compute high accuracy potential energy surfaces (PES), and created an error estimator for the angular expansion of multidimensional PES. A notable application regards the rigid-body HO-H potential with wave-number accuracy. Intensive calculations are carried on national supercomputers and also provide the main test case application on the rapidly-growing Grenoble computer grid ``CiGri''.
Expertise in Training and Knowledge Transfer
The postdoctoral fellow (PDF) would be employed within the Astrophysics Lab of the ``Universe Sciences Observatory'' of the University Joseph Fourier. PDFs are expected to attend (and contribute to) the programme of seminars, which include (at least) a seminar every week in astrophysics (many more seminars are available in the Schools of Earth and Universe Sciences; Physics; Chemistry; and Computer Science and Applied Mathematics). Our interdisciplinary approach provides numerous opportunities for local collaborations and informal workshops. Furthermore, PDFs have access to all modular training programmes of the University Joseph Fourier, such as high performance and parallel computing courses or scientific communication training. All team members regularly attend and present works at national and international meetings. PDFs are also expected to play a role in trainee supervising. These various activities will provide a natural way for the PDF to move into the role of a research supervisor, capable of managing international research projects and teams, and therefore being fully involved in knowledge transfer. Over the past four years, the LAOG group people has supervised 10 PhD students (4F+6M), and 1 PDFs (1M).

Involvement of Key Scientific Staff.

Significant References
1. Jozef Noga and Pierre Valiron, 2002, In: Computational Chemistry: Reviews of Current Trends Vol. 7, edited by J. Leszcynski, World Scientific, Singapore, 131, "Explicitly Correlated Coupled Cluster R12 Calculations."
2. C.Ceccarelli, A.Castets, E.Caux, et al. 2000, A& A, 355, 1129 , ``The structure of the collapsing envelope around the low mass protostar IRAS16293-2422''