MASTER Physique
Parcours : Astrophysique

This program intends to build a broad knowledge of the field of astrophysics and its associated methodology to prepare the students to pursue a PhD training in astrophysics or associated domains. It offers during the first semester a set of compulsory courses covering most of the requirements in modern astrophysics as well as courses focused on data science (databases, statistical modeling, etc) with the aim to give the students a strong knowledge base. These courses are complemented by optional courses giving in-depth knowledge on specific topics and permitting students to start building an area of expertise. The second term is devoted to projects and contains observational projects on the in-house telescope, a 5 nights project at a professional observing site (OHP) and a 15 weeks internship. All the teaching is conducted in English to prepare the students to work in a highly international environment.

Lectures are held at the Observatoire astronomique de Strasbourg and the syllabus is focused on the scientific expertise of the observatory (high energy astrophysics, galaxies and cosmology, data science) while providing the basis on most of the topics of current astrophysical research such as the interstellar medium, stellar physics, plasmas physics etc. A particular emphasis on data science is built all along the program to provide the students with the tools and know-how for handling and interpreting large heterogeneous datasets which are common in astrophysics with lectures on databases, statistics and probability, inverse methods theory. The curriculum is relying on projects on top of regular lectures to allow the students to gain a practical know-how in numerical simulations, observations, data handling and characterisation and data reduction and analysis.