CONTEXT

The Astrophysics doctorate programme is aimed to promote the formation of researchers of excellence.

Proposal in the context of the current state of the research and development sector

In these times we are witnessing a revolution in the understanding of the astrophysical phenomena, caused basically for:

1) The huge scientific progress, in Physics as well as Mathematics.

2) The impressive technological development of the scientific instrumentation, including the opportunities arisen from the new observational techniques from Earth as well as from the space and the improvements on computers and their related networks technology.

3) The improvements in the processing of scientific data, its storage, transmission and development of new computation codes with the latest advances in numerical analysis, which allows with much greater precision highly non linear equations of great complexity.

Nowadays, astrophysicists from spanish institutions located at Madrid are involved at the highest level in several Euro-american projects as the Herschel Space Observatory (ESA/NASA), the ALMA interferometer (ESO/NRAO/NSF/Japan), the Radio Telescope of Yebes (Guadalajara), or the new space telescope replacing the Hubble (JWST).

Is also remarkable their compromise in national projects as the Gran Telescopio de Canarias (GTC), the telescopes of the Centro Astronómico Hispano-Alemán (CAHA) at Calar Alto (Almería), or international as the Spitzer Space Telescope or the X-rays telescopes Chandra y XMM-Newton, controlled from the Satellites Tracking Station that the European Space Agency (ESA) has in Villafranca del Castillo, Madrid. The European Space Astronomy Center (ESAC, ESA scientific center) is located in the same place. In addition, Spain is a member of the European Southern Observatory (ESO), so it has access to any telescope of this institution.

Furthermore, in the last years, Computational Astrophysics have thrived in Spain, thanks to the Red Española de Supercomputación and the Centro Nacional de Supercomputación/ Barcelona Supercomputing Center, among others.

This Astrophysics doctorate programme of the U.A.M. is framed in a context of conceptual revolutions and huge technological progress in this discipline, availed by the presence of leading institutions in the development of Astrophysics near the U.A.M.

We wanted to take advantage of the opportunities this geographical and professional proximity gives to incorporate those institutions as partners in the "core team" of the Astrophysics doctorate programme of the U.A.M.

Moreover, the Astrophysics is an internationalized field of knowledge and activities and for that reason we also include, on a different level, various european and american research centers.