My paper with Jun-Qian Jiang, William Giarè, Stefano Gariazzo, Maria Giovanna Dainotti, Eleonora Di Valentino, Olga Mena, Davide Pedrotti, and Simony Santos da Costa, where we investigate the status of (positive) neutrino mass cosmology after the latest DESI measurements (see this earlier news item), has been accepted for publication in JCAP! The paper has undergone has a substantial revision, which resulted in the addition of several appendices clarifying various technical aspects of the analysis (e.g. cosmology-internal tension, impact of PR4 likelihoods, and H0 versus MB prior among others), as well as an additional useful plot, and useful discussions on the neutrino mass ordering: however, the main results are unaltered, and are now more robust. You can read the preprint version of the paper on arXiv: 2407.18047.
Hubble tension, Ωm, and ωc paper accepted in PRD!
My paper with Davide Pedrotti, Jun-Qian Jiang, Luis Escamilla, and Simony Santos da Costa, where we discuss the multidimensionality of the Hubble tension and the roles of Ωm and ωc (see this earlier news item), has been accepted for publication in PRD! There were extremely minor revisions compared to the earlier version, which have resulted in a clearer discussion of the novel aspects and the domain of applicability of our results. You can read the preprint version of the paper on arXiv: 2408.04530.
Stochastic gravitational wave background from cosmologically coupled black holes paper accepted in Scientific Reports!
My paper with Marco Calzà, Francesco Gianesello, and Max Rinaldi (proudly 100% made within the Theoretical Gravitation and Cosmology Group led by myself and Max!) , where we study the stochastic gravitational wave background signal resulting from inspiraling cosmologically coupled BHs (see this earlier news item), has been accepted for publication in Scientific Reports, part of the Nature Portfolio collection of journals (therefore making this my third proper Nature publication)! With respect to the earlier version we have slightly changed the title and explained the content of Fig. 2 much more clearly, but the main message of the paper is otherwise unchanged. You can read the preprint version of the paper on arXiv: 2409.01801.
Primordial regular black holes papers accepted in PRD!
Extremely good news today as my two earlier papers on primordial regular BHs with Marco Calzà and Davide Pedrotti (see these two earlier news items: part 1 and part 2), where we characterize non-singular primordial BHs as DM candidates, have both been accepted for publication in PRD! There have been a few changes with respect to the earlier versions (slight changes to the titles, discussions on the time evolution of these BHs added, and a few minor additions), but our main messages are unaltered. You can read the preprint versions of the papers on arXiv: 2409.02804 and 2409.02807.
Non-parametric expansion history reconstruction paper accepted in PRD!
My paper with Jun-Qian Jiang, Davide Pedrotti, and Simony Santos da Costa (first one entirely produced within my group), where we perform a non-parametric reconstruction of the late-time expansion history in light of DESI BAO data (see this earlier news item), has been accepted for publication in PRD! Compared to the earlier version, there have been minor changes to the plots and title, but our main results are unaltered. You can read the preprint version of the paper on arXiv: 2408.02365.
EHT and mimetic gravity paper accepted in Scientific Reports!
My paper with Mohsen Khodadi and Javad Firouzjaee, where we show that the EHT observations of M87* and Sgr A* rule out the baseline version of mimetic gravity (see this earlier news item), has been accepted for publication in Scientific Reports, part of the Nature Portfolio collection of journals (therefore making this my second proper Nature publication)! The most significant addition compared to the earlier version is a new figure with examples of null geodesics in the space-times we studied, which shows in a very clear way why their shadow properties are pathological. You can read the preprint version of the paper on arXiv: 2408.03241.
Quasinormal modes-shadow correspondence paper accepted in PRD!
My paper with Davide Pedrotti, which explores the validity of the eikonal quasinormal modes-shadow radii correspondence for rotating regular black holes (see this earlier news item), has been accepted for publication in PRD! Very minor revisions compared to the previous version include the addition of an extra point for which we tested the correspondence and minor updates to the figures. Unfortunately, during the review process the paper also changed its title (losing its cool first part on the lightning-thunder correspondence!), but we knew far too well that it would have been super hard to keep it. Congratulations Davide for your first paper accepted for publication, and here’s to hoping there will be many more! You can read the preprint version of the paper on arXiv: 2404.07589.
Varying electron mass and ΛsCDM paper accepted in PDU!
My paper with Yo Toda, William Giarè, Emre Özülker, and Eleonora Di Valentino, where we attempt to solve the Hubble tension combining a spatially uniform time-varying electron mass in a non-spatially flat Universe, and the ΛsCDM model, featuring a late-time sign-switching cosmological constant (see this earlier news item), has been accepted for publication in PDU! Minor revisions compared to the previous version include a small change to the title, small updates to the figures and tables for consistency, and especially a proper Bayesian evidence-based model comparison analysis. You can read the preprint version of the paper on arXiv: 2407.01173.
Solar chameleons paper accepted in PRD!
My paper with Tom O'Shea, Anne Davis, Maurizio Giannotti, Luca Visinelli, and Julia Vogel, where we revisited the issue of production of Solar chameleons (see this earlier news item), has been accepted for publication in PRD! Minor revisions compared to the previous version include a rough estimate of how much the CAST bound on the chameleon-photon coupling changes accounting for the production channels we studied. You can read the preprint version of the paper on arXiv: 2406.01691.
Fifth forces and Bennu paper accepted in Communications Physics!
Very happy to report that my paper with Yu-Dai Tsai, Davide Farnocchia, Marco Micheli, and Luca Visinelli, where we use OSIRIS-REx tracking data for the asteroid Bennu to set new constraints on fifth forces and ultralight dark matter (see this earlier news item), has officially been accepted for publication in the prestigious Communications Physics, part of the Nature Portfolio collection of journals (it is my second time publishing in Nature journals after my 2020 book review in Nature Astronomy, but only the first time publishing a proper original scientific article)! It was quite a long journey, with a couple of rounds of revision on both the scientific and editorial sides, although overall there were no major changes to our results which, if anything, have been clarified better. You can read the preprint version of the paper on arXiv: 2309.13106.
Negative cosmological constant and JWST paper (part 2) accepted in JCAP!
My paper with with with Nicola Menci, Shahnawaz Adil, Upala Mukhopadhyay, and Anjan Sen, where we robustly compare a dark energy model featuring a negative cosmological constant against JWST data (see this earlier news item), has been accepted for publication in JCAP! The results are basically unchanged compared to our earlier version, with certain aspects of our analysis better clarified. You can read the preprint version of the paper on arXiv: 2401.12659.
Scale-invariant inflation paper accepted in JCAP!
My paper with with with Chiara Cecchini, Mariaveronica De Angelis, William Giarè, and Max Rinaldi, where we tested a theoretically very well-motivated classically scale-invariant inflationary model against current cosmological data (see this earlier news item), has been accepted for publication in JCAP! There were a few minor changes in order to better clarify a few aspects of our analysis, but the results are completely unchanged with respect to the earlier version. You can read the preprint version of the paper on arXiv: 2403.04316.
State of the dark energy equation of state paper accepted in JCAP!
My paper with with Luis Escamilla, William Giarè, Eleonora Di Valentino, and Rafael Nunes, where we present state-of-the-art constraints on the dark energy equation of state from a number of cosmological probes (see this earlier news item), has been accepted for publication in JCAP! There were a few changes, mostly making a few parts of the discussion clearer, but the results are otherwise completely unchanged compared to the previous version we posted this summer. You can read the preprint version of the paper on arXiv: 2307.14802.
Laniakea paper accepted in JCAP!
My paper with Leo Giani, Cullan Howlett, Khaled Said, and Tam Davis, where we show how the Hubble tension is worsened when properly accounting for local effects of Laniakea (see this earlier news item), has been accepted for publication in JCAP - excellent Christmas present! There were a few minor changes compared to the previous version, and I especially want to highlight the first sentence from the referee report, which in my opinion really sums up the impact of the paper and of Leo’s exceptional work: “I found this paper to be a significant contribution to the characterization of our local spacetime“ (thank you so much referee, whoever you are!). You can read the preprint version of the paper on arXiv: 2311.00215.
Negative cosmological constant and JWST paper accepted in JCAP!
My paper with Shahnawaz Adil, Upala Mukhopadhyay, and Anjan Sen, where we show how a dark energy model featuring a negative cosmological constant with an evolving component on top can potentially explain the puzzling JWST observations (see this earlier news item), has been accepted for publication in JCAP! The revision requested was pretty minor, but a notable (and in my opinion rather important) addition is the new Fig. 1 I produced, where we show the effective equation of state of this dark energy model. In some cases it goes through a singularity, which indicates the point where the total energy density of the dark energy switches sign. The singularity is nothing to worry about, as we argued. You can read the preprint version of the paper on arXiv: 2307.12763.
Inflationary gravitational waves and PTA paper accepted in JHEAp!
My single-author paper where I examine an inflationary interpretation of the signal observed by PTA experiments (see this earlier news item) has been accepted for publication in JHEAp! For once, after papers which went through extremely long journeys, this was a very quick turnaround, as the referee report clearly highlighted the timeliness and importance of the results. You can read the preprint version of the paper on arXiv: 2306.16912.
Sgr A* horizon-scale tests paper accepted in CQG!
I’m really excited that my paper on horizon-scale tests of gravity theories and fundamental physics from the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) image of Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*) has been accepted for publication in CQG! This is a huge paper I led with 14 other authors spread throughout the world (our countries of affiliation include Italy, UK, China, USA, India, Iran, Canada, South Africa, North Macedonia, and Turkey): Rittick Roy, Yu-Dai Tsai, Luca Visinelli, Misba Afrin, Alireza Allahyari, Parth Bambhaniya, Dipanjan Dey, Sushant Ghosh, Pankaj Joshi, Kimet Jusufi, Mohsen Khodadi, Rahul Kumar Walia, Ali Övgün, and Cosimo Bambi. We used the EHT image of Sgr A* to test over 50 well-motivated theoretical scenarios, ranging from theories of gravity, novel fundamental physics frameworks, and black hole mimickers such as naked singularities and wormholes. This paper was initially (see v1) written only with Rittick, Yu-Dai, and Luca, tirelessly and also shamelessly ambulance-chased over a weekend following the exciting EHT announcement on May 12, 2022, but was then substantially polished and extended throughout summer 2022 with the addition of all the new authors - it is easily one of the most impactful papers I’ve ever written and at the same time likely the paper that drained the most energy out of me, and I’m really relieved to finally see it accepted for publication, after a very long refereeing process (one of the referee reports was a 4-page long pdf in 10pt font!). You can find the preprint version of the paper on arXiv: 2205.07787.
Asteroid precession and fifth forces paper accepted in JCAP!
My paper with Yu-Dai Tsai, Youjia Wu, and Luca Visinelli, where we use asteroids as a probe of fifth forces, including those mediated by new ultralight particles which could be the dark matter, has been accepted for publication in JCAP! We find that we can potentially set some of the leading fifth force constraints in a certain range of mediator mass. This is another paper which has gone through a really long journey, as it was conceived during a brainstorm Zoom call in October 2020. We are now developing a number of follow-up ideas with asteroid experts, so stay tuned for more! You can find the preprint version of the paper on arXiv: 2107.04038.
Early dark energy and massive neutrinos paper accepted in MNRAS!
My paper with Alex Reeves, Laura Herold, Blake Sherwin, and Elisa Ferreira (a very international collaboration, spanning 6 different countries - Switzerland, Germany, Italy, UK, Japan, and Brazil!), where we study whether a cosmological model featuring early dark energy (EDE) and massive neutrinos can alleviate cosmological tensions in a way which bypasses the potential problems EDE faces with galaxy clustering data, has been accepted for publication in MNRAS! We show that the answer is…“yes and no”, in the sense that our paper really reinforces the idea that prior volume effects are very important for EDE, to the extent that some of those which were previously described as problems, just maybe aren’t really problems in the first place. Kudos to Alex and Laura, two outstanding PhD students (though Laura is off to her first postdoc as a Miller fellow at JHU), who did all the heavy-lifting on this paper! It has been quite a journey, considering this paper was born out of Alex’s MSc thesis (Alex did his Part III in Cambridge with me, Blake, and George Efstathiou), whose project was conceived on a stuffy afternoon of July 2020, deep in lockdown period, while the first referee report was humongous to say the least, but really helped improve the paper! You can find the preprint version of the paper on arXiv: 2207.01501.
LQG and Sgr A* paper accepted in ApJ!
The year is off to a truly great start research-wise: my paper with Misba Afrin and Sushant Ghosh, where we test two Loop Quantum Gravity (LQG, which is an interesting candidate framework for quantum gravity)-inspired rotating black hole space-times against the Event Horizon Telescope image of Sgr A*, the black hole at the center of our galaxy, has just been accepted for publication in ApJ! We use the size and shape of the shadow to place limits on a parameter which basically quantifies the strength of LQG effects. Our bounds are of course comparatively weak, but at the same time are interesting as a proof of principle given that there are very few ways (if any at all!) to test LQG from the observational point of view. And kudos to Misba, an outstanding PhD student at Jamia Millia Islamia, who did basically all the heavy-lifting on this paper! You can find the preprint version of the paper on arXiv: 2209.12584.
