PhD thesis projects assigned to students

This list is incomplete and is currently being updated

Assigned PhD Projects

ESA is preparing for a mission to monitor the Sun. A world first, this upcoming space weather mission will ensure we are able to monitor, 'nowcast' and forecast potentially dangerous solar events, giving us time to protect at risk infrastructure on Earth, or life in space. For years, it has been known as the Lagrange mission, but now we have a new name: ESA Vigil.

Development of various analysis tools, processing pipelines, and data enhancement procedures for ESA's upcoming space weather mission more

Jupiter’s magnetosphere and the space plasma environment of the Galilean moons

The Planetary Plasma Environments group (PPE) has a strong heritage in the exploration of planetary magnetospheres and space plasma interactions throughout the solar system. It has contributed instruments to several past missions that flew-by or orbited Jupiter (Galileo, Cassini, Ulysses). The PPE participates in the JUICE mission by contributing hardware and scientific expertise to the Particle Environment Package (PEP). more

Artistic rendering of an early planetary system with a central star with remainders of a debris disk and a plethora of colorful orbiting planets

Understanding the formation and evolution of planets from micron-sized dust grains to fully-formed planets more

Mercury Plasma Environment

A Bepi Colombo Mission to Mercury project (DLR funding) more

Images of earth and Mars side by side: a mostly blue sphere with a pale reddish landmass in the center mostly, hidden by while swirling clouds, on the left, three-quarter-illuminated, and a smaller, fully-illuminated reddish-brown sphere with some white patches on the visible surface on the right. Image credit: NASA/JPL

Cosmochemical investigations on the heritage of volatiles in Earth, Mars, and the Moon more

geodynamo

Numerical simulations to better understand the complete reversals of the geodynamo dipole more

Solar coronal structures observed with EUI. The left panel shows a high-resolution view of ~1 MK coronal loops in an active region. The right panel is a zoom into the south pole of the Sun, showing numerous megameter-scale plasma jets.  These data were acquired during the first science perihelion of Solar Orbiter during March-April 2022.

Deciphering the magnetic origins of the Sun's hot corona: developing a framework for coronal heating by probing the elusive photosphere-corona connection more

Artist's impression of an early solar system: a sun with a disk in the background to the right, planetoids and a planet in the foreground to the left

The Sun’s planets and small objects have undergone substantial evolution. Deciphering the history of our cosmic home is not a simple task even though we now have access to a multitude of data gathered by space missions, remote observations, and laboratory studies of diverse samples. A significant fraction of materials available for the study of planetary bodies come from meteorites. more

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Jupiter’s magnetosphere and the space plasma environment of the Galilean moons

The Planetary Plasma Environments group (PPE) has a strong heritage in the exploration of planetary magnetospheres and space plasma interactions throughout the solar system. It has contributed instruments to several past missions that flew-by or orbited Jupiter (Galileo, Cassini, Ulysses). The PPE participates in the JUICE mission by contributing hardware and scientific expertise to the Particle Environment Package (PEP). more

Artistic rendering of an early planetary system with a central star with remainders of a debris disk and a plethora of colorful orbiting planets

Understanding the formation and evolution of planets from micron-sized dust grains to fully-formed planets more

Mercury Plasma Environment

A Bepi Colombo Mission to Mercury project (DLR funding) more

Images of earth and Mars side by side: a mostly blue sphere with a pale reddish landmass in the center mostly, hidden by while swirling clouds, on the left, three-quarter-illuminated, and a smaller, fully-illuminated reddish-brown sphere with some white patches on the visible surface on the right. Image credit: NASA/JPL

Cosmochemical investigations on the heritage of volatiles in Earth, Mars, and the Moon more

geodynamo

Numerical simulations to better understand the complete reversals of the geodynamo dipole more

Artist's impression of an early solar system: a sun with a disk in the background to the right, planetoids and a planet in the foreground to the left

The Sun’s planets and small objects have undergone substantial evolution. Deciphering the history of our cosmic home is not a simple task even though we now have access to a multitude of data gathered by space missions, remote observations, and laboratory studies of diverse samples. A significant fraction of materials available for the study of planetary bodies come from meteorites. more

Making small planetesimals during the formation era of the solar system

Numerical simulations to explore how minor bodies like asteroids, comets and KBOs formed more

Global distribution and dynamics of dust near comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko

Statistically analyse the large set of grain coma data in Rosetta/OSIRIS images of comet 67P/C-G more

Dynamics of debris in the coma of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko

Develop an image analysis algorithm for Rosetta/OSIRIS images of comet 67P/C-G's coma more

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ESA is preparing for a mission to monitor the Sun. A world first, this upcoming space weather mission will ensure we are able to monitor, 'nowcast' and forecast potentially dangerous solar events, giving us time to protect at risk infrastructure on Earth, or life in space. For years, it has been known as the Lagrange mission, but now we have a new name: ESA Vigil.

Development of various analysis tools, processing pipelines, and data enhancement procedures for ESA's upcoming space weather mission more

Solar coronal structures observed with EUI. The left panel shows a high-resolution view of ~1 MK coronal loops in an active region. The right panel is a zoom into the south pole of the Sun, showing numerous megameter-scale plasma jets.  These data were acquired during the first science perihelion of Solar Orbiter during March-April 2022.

Deciphering the magnetic origins of the Sun's hot corona: developing a framework for coronal heating by probing the elusive photosphere-corona connection more

Assigned PhD project: Response of Martian atmosphere to Solar activity

Solar irradiance variability as seen by Mars general circulation models and comparison to HOPE data more

Global magneto-convection models of stars with varying rotation rate

The solar magnetic field is mostly axisymmetric at large-scale with latitudinal dynamo wave propagating from mid-latitudes towards the equator, as can be seen from observations of the solar cycle. Reproducing this pattern is one of the main demands that a numerical model has to satisfy. more

PLATO PhD position at CNES (Paris) and MPSSR (Göttingen)

Assigned PhD project: PLATO PhD position at CNES (Paris) and MPSSR (Göttingen): application deadline 22 March 2021 more

Assigned PhD project: Response of Martian atmosphere to Solar activity

Solar irradiance variability as seen by Mars general circulation models and comparison to HOPE data more

The stellar pulsation timing detection method for sub-stellar companions

Establishing a new method to detect extra-solar planets more

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