Thesis Topic IMPRS

We list on this page the topics offered by ESO Faculty astronomers to the students interested in the 2025 IMPRS on Astrophysics programme.

The deadline to apply for IMPRS PhD positions is November 1 every year for the program starting in September of the following year.

Please remember to explicitly mention your interest in one (or more) of the topic(s) listed on this page in your application.

If the applicant does not want to choose the PhD project explicitly, the applicant is asked to mention the ESO institute. Applications to ESO indicating projects different from those listed on this webpage will not be considered.

Please contact us for general information about doing your PhD at ESO within the IMPRS program.

The research activities at ESO focus on optical, infrared, and millimeter-wave astronomy, primarily using ground-based facilities at ESO observatories in Chile. In addition to optical and infrared imaging and spectroscopy, ESO astronomers are actively involved in developing and utilizing high-spatial resolution techniques such as adaptive optics and interferometry. Beyond these specific topics, the scientific expertise at ESO covers all major areas of astrophysics, including observational astronomy, modeling, and numerical simulations.

The research interests of ESO's science staff range from the Solar System to studies of the solar neighborhood (extrasolar planets, evolved stars, star formation), the interstellar medium, Galactic structure, galaxy evolution in the local Universe and at high redshift, the gas content of the Cosmic Web, and cosmology (galaxy clusters, Gamma-ray bursts, dark matter, lensing).

More details on science activities at ESO are available at ESO Science.

For detailed information related to the PhD projects offered at ESO, please do not hesitate to contact the Thesis Supervisor.

ESO Garching

Planets' formation, exoplanets

Thesis topic Thesis supervisor
Dust Dynamics in young Debris Disks Johan Olofsson

Galaxy evolution/formation

Thesis topic Thesis supervisor
The dust properties of sub-solar metallicity galaxies at cosmic noon

Gergö Popping

Stellar evolution: neutron stars, explosion mechanisms and black holes

Thesis topic Thesis supervisor
Mapping accretion disc atmospheres and outflows in X-ray binaries at high spectral resolution with XRISM María Díaz Trigo
Thesis topic Thesis supervisor
Constraining the explosion mechanisms of Type Ia supernovae using optical-infrared observations and radiative-transfer simulations Ferdinando Patat