AST605 - ECTS

The curricular unit aims to ensure that students are able to develop and strengthen the skills that are relevant to perform research work as part of a doctoral degree. This is achieved through actions and tasks that foster the acquisition of concepts, methodologies and approaches used in research. The goal of the course is to allow the student to develop core competencies for research, essential for an adequate training of a research student.

AST607a - ECTS This unit allows the student to obtain complementary training in astronomy or related fields, through other doctoral units offered by the University of Porto or other national/foreign universities, or through the attendance of advanced programs (doctoral schools, training workshops, etc) that are relevant to the training in astronomy and related techniques.

AST601 - ECTS

The preparation of a doctoral thesis project aims to develop the ability for systematic understanding of astronomy and the building of research skills and methods for working in astronomy and its instrumentation. To this end the student should be able to understand, conceive, design and develop a research program that will eventually produce a significant body of original research results that may contribute to extending the frontiers of knowledge. Thus, this curricular unit aims to allow the student to structure the thesis plan in order to advance to the second phase of the course, after having understood the state of the art and the research route that may enable a significant contribution to the specific topic of astronomy that has been chosen.

AST606 - ECTS

The course aims to allow the student to strengthen specific knowledge of astronomy or of other topics / techniques relevant to the training of the student. This is achieved through research and development work, based on tasks that foster the acquisition of concepts, methodologies and approaches relevant to the work to be developed in the thesis. Thus the student is exposed to research experience, leading to acquisition of skills, in order to consolidate in the first year specific components that are critical to the completion of the course and, in particular, to the curricular units of the second and third year.

AST602 - ECTS

In this UC the students develop the necessary skills to understand and be prepared for research in advanced topics related to the study of stars and planets. Two topics are chosen annually among a number of possibilities that include studies of: the sun, the solar system, the physics and dynamics of stellar interiors, the evolution of stars, the formation and evolution of exoplanetary systems, the detection and characterization of exoplanets, the astrochemistry of the interstellar medium, astrobiology, among others. At the end of the UC the students must understand and be able to apply techniques that are currently in use by the scientific community working on the selected topics. These can include techniques for the extraction of information from the data, for data interpretation, for the modeling of physical phenomena, etc.. Students are also expected to be able to critically review articles related to those topics and to identify associated open questions.

AST603 - ECTS

The main aim is to provide advanced training in topics at the forefront of research in Galactic and Extragalactic Astronomy, as well as in Cosmology.
At this level, allied to the concern of providing students with a solid background in the areas of the course, the aim is that students develop fundamental abilities for being successful researchers, namely: critical analysis, autonomy, technical skills that enable them to carry out research in one of the topics covered and communication skills for efficiently presenting and discussing their work. The aim is also that students are aware of the research opportunities and of present and future stakes, nationally and at an international level, in the concerned areas.

AST613 - ECTS To provide the student with a series of techniques, methods, tools and theories form which he can construct models applicable to phenomena in astrophysics that, although different, maybe modelled in an analogous way.

As an example of these we have concepts and methods that can be used in the study of time-series in astronomy, tools of artificial intelligence and machine learning relevant for astronomy or methods and theories from which se can model jets in astrophysics, from the ones observed in young stellar objects to the extragalactic ones.


In 2020/2021 this curricular unit will be comprised of the modules A and B.


Module A: Time-domain Astronomy (15 hrs TP)
Lecturer: Tiago Campante, Department of Physics and Astronomy, FCUP

To provide the student with the basic concepts and methodology relevant to the field of time-domain astronomy
 

Module B: Artifical Intelligence for Astronomy (15 hrs TP)
Lecturer: João Pedro Pedroso, Department of Computing Science, FCUP

The objective of this course is to introduce the tools of artificial intelligence and machine learning which are relevant for astronomy.

Students will get acquainted with:

- How to formulate a problem in the area;
- The main computational tools required for making an experiment;
- A selection of algorithms and concepts;
- The usage of software tools in practice.

Module C: Jets in Astrophysics (15 hrs TP)

Lecturer: Christophe Sauty, Observatoire de Paris

Give an overview of accretion and jet phenomena on all scales of the universe, namely:
- their plasma dynamics
- the various basic radiation processes
- some observational data and theoretical interpretations.

Show from young low-mass stars to active galaxy nuclei what are the common issues and the main differences between the accreting systems and their jets on various scales.

AST614 - ECTS

This curricular unit provides advanced training in relevant topics of current research on the different components of observation and instrumentation in Astronomy, through specific modules in active areas of research and development. The aim is to address in detail the tools and fundamental principles that are necessary for a research activity in this area intervention of modern Astronomy.

The student is expected to acquire knowledge and skills necessary to plan, implement and reduce observations in different wavelengths and to understand the development and operation of astronomical instrumentation used in these observations. The student should also be able to understand the technology used and the methods for collecting information in astronomy and how those observations can be transformed into useful scientific data for research in Astronomy.