Support for the CTA Project Scientist

The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is a global (27 nation, >1000 person, ~£150M capital) project to construct the first facility-level ground-based gamma-ray observatory. CTA is in a prototyping/preparatory phase with heavy UK involvement and will be completed ~2020. CTA has a very broad science case (see the pro-forma submitted to the Programmatic Review) and builds on the success of current generation Cherenkov telescope arrays such as HESS (which received the Rossi and Descartes prizes). I have recently been appointed as the Project Scientist of CTA, and here a request financial support for a post-doctoral research assistant to support me in my research whilst I hold this post, to strengthen UK scientific impact early in the CTA programme.

The UK leads the Outreach work package (Chadwick, Durham) within the CTA collaboration, with the support of EU FP7 funds. The PDRA employed will be encouraged to contribute ideas to the outreach and knowledge exchange aspects of CTA. As a major technological undertaking with exciting frontier science, CTA lends itself well to both industrial and societal outreach and collaboration.