All PhD students and young postdocs can participate in a competitive exchange programme. In principle, any international institution can serve as a host. The purpose of the exchange programme is to learn new skills that are relevant to the respective CRC project and to make new contacts to gain visibility. The CRC aims to fund a 3 month‘s exchange for 5 people each year. To participate, young researchers should apply to the CRC executive board with a research statement and a cost estimate. The PL will be asked to write a support statement. If there are more applications that can be funded, the PLs will be asked to outline their priority setting to the Executive Board. Furthermore, the PLs are asked to maintain active planning of exchange activities for each funding period. Due to the scientific activities of the CRC in Chile, close contact with the Universidad Catolica de la Santisima Concepcion exists and can be used to enable a PhD exchange to Chile where the young researchers can gain experience in using some of the world’s most modern telescopes. Participants must report on their experience within this exchange programme, and the reports will be uploaded on the CRC website (Cupcake-photo by Bettina Heyne).
Exchange Report from Birka Zimmermann
Host Institution: Institute of Space Sciences (ICE-CSIC), Barcelona
Host Researcher: Dr. Álvaro Sánchez-Monge
Duration: 5 weeks
Introduction
My PhD research focuses on high-mass star formation, where I simulate the collapse of massive, turbulent cores and generate synthetic dust continuum maps. A key challenge in this work is comparing these idealised simulation outputs with real observational data such as the ALMAGAL survey. Doing so requires a solid understanding of interferometric observing techniques and the associated data-reduction steps. To bridge this gap, I spend a five-week research stay at ICE-CSIC in Barcelona under the supervision of Dr. Álvaro Sánchez-Monge, with the goal of learning and applying his established ALMAGAL data-processing workflow to my synthetic observations.
Research Experience
During my stay, I was introduced to the full calibration and imaging pipeline used for ALMAGAL observations. Together, we adapted this workflow to operate on synthetic data from my simulations, allowing me to learn how to translate my idealised continuum maps (produced from AMR simulations and radiative transfer) into postprocessed synthetic observations. This step is essential for achieving a realistic, one-to-one comparison between simulations and observational data.
Beyond the technical work, daily discussions offered valuable insights into common observational artefacts (such as missing flux, noise patterns, and beam effects) and how these phenomena influence the interpretation of structures like protostellar cores when comparing observations with simulations. During the visit, we also developed a concrete strategy for my upcoming simulation–observation comparison paper, including the evolutionary stages to analyse, appropriate imaging parameters, and robust metrics for quantitative evaluation. Regular group meetings and seminars provided an excellent overview of the latest research activities at ICE-CSIC. The group members (from students to professors) were very collaborative and supportive, creating an inspiring and highly productive scientific environment for this exchange.
Conclusion
This exchange significantly strengthened my project: I got a working, realistic pipeline to turn simulation outputs into ALMA-like data, and I gained a deeper understanding of observational limitations and their implications for comparing to simulations. The stay also established a lasting collaboration with Dr. Sánchez-Monge. Finally, beyond science, the visit was personally enriching: living in Barcelona and working at ICE-CSIC gave me fresh perspectives, new ideas and additional motivation. I am very grateful to CRC 1601 for supporting this opportunity.
Experiences from CRC 956 PhD-students can be read here: https://www.sfb956.de/students/experiences