For the next days we have the pleasure of hosting Davide Racco and Flaminia Giacomini, who are visiting us from Zurich (respectively from the University of Zurich+ETH, and ETH). Both are very well-known researchers with interests at the intersection of particle physics and cosmology (Davide) and at the interface between quantum theory/quantum information and gravity (Flaminia). They will be giving seminars by the titles of “Insights on fundamental physics from Gravitational Wave backgrounds” and “Quantum effects in gravity from a delocalised quantum source” . Welcome Davide and Flaminia!
Farewell to Jun-Qian Jiang
Today we say farewell to Jun-Qian Jiang, who after an extremely successful 6 months as a long-term visiting PhD student, is returning to China (below is a picture from our farewell pizza dinner at Doc: from left to right we have Simony Santos da Costa, Marco Calzà, Guan-Wen Yuan, Jun-Qian Jiang, and yours sincerely). Jun-Qian’s time here was extremely productive, with 3 very interesting papers, many more in the making, and several key contributions to my group’s activities, for which his arrival was extremely important. Thanks a lot Jun-Qian for everything you taught me, and have a nice trip back to China!
Visit by Valerio Faraoni
For the next couple of weeks we have the great pleasure of hosting Valerio Faraoni, currently a Full Professor at Bishop’s University in Canada, and arguably one of the world experts on all things related to gravity. Valerio will also be delivering a seminar by the title of “A bird's eye view of the first-order thermodynamics of scalar-tensor gravity”. Welcome Valerio!
Visit by Benjamin Knorr
This week we have the pleasure to host Benjamin Knorr, currently a postdoc at NORDITA and arguably one of the world experts on asymptotic safety, a highly non-trivial generalization of the idea of perturbative renormalization. Benjamin also delivered a very nice talk by the title of “Asymptotic safety meets field redefinitions”. Welcome Benjamin!
Visit by Leonardo Giani
We are delighted to have Leonardo (Leo) Giani visiting us once more! Leo is a postdoc at the University of Queensland, where he is working on a bunch of very interesting things gravity- and cosmology-related, including our recent work on Laniakea. We took the opportunity to catch up on a few ideas which had been hanging around (and are turning into student projects), while Leo also gave a seminar by the title of “Cosmology from the point of view of an almost spherical cow”.
Visit by Luca Visinelli
We are delighted to have Luca Visinelli visiting us once more! Luca is a Professor at the Tsung-Dao Lee Insittute in Shanghai Jiao Tong University: he is a very well-known scientist with broad research interests spanning dark matter, dark energy, and black holes. It was a very enjoyable visit during which we took the opportunity to catch up on our ongoing projects (especially replying to pending referee reports!) and enjoy the surroundings of Povo, while Luca also gave a seminar by the title of “Theoretical motivations for a light boson and its phenomenology”.
Visit by Francesco Di Filippo
We’re excited to welcome our latest visitor: Francesco Di Filippo from Charles University in Prague! Francesco, hosted by Max Rinaldi, is currently a postdoc at Charles University in Prague, where he has been doing a lot of interesting work especially on regular black holes and possible instabilities (or not) thereof, together with a bunch of experts in the field including Stefano Liberati and Matt Visser - he will be delivering a seminar at TIFPA by the title of “Non-singular black holes: Open issues and implications”. Welcome Francesco!
Visit by Marc Schneider
We’re excited to welcome our latest visitor: Marc Schneider from SISSA! Marc is currently a postdoc at SISSA, where he has been doing a lot of interesting work especially on the possibility that singularities in GR may be somewhat tamed once quantum effects are taken into account, at which point fields and stress-energy tensor should be treated more as distributions than functions. Marc will be delivering a seminar at TIFPA by the title of “Probing the Big Bang with Quantum Fields”. He already delivered a very interesting talk on the subject at the XXV SIGRAV conference, and I look forward to hearing more and discussing these ideas in a more informal setting. Welcome Marc!
Jun-Qian Jiang joins my group!
I’m very happy to welcome my latest group member, Jun-Qian Jiang (江俊钱)! Jun-Qian is currently a PhD student at the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences under the supervision of Prof. Yun-Song Piao, and has been doing a lot of interesting and very diversified work in the fields of cosmological tensions, inflation, gravitational waves, and so on. He joins my group for the next 6 months as a long-term visiting PhD student. We still have to figure out what we will be working on, but it likely will have to do with cosmological tensions and possibly implications for inflation. Welcome Jun-Qian, and I hope you will enjoy your stay in Italy!
Visit by Françoise Combes
For the next two days we have the pleasure of hosting Prof. Françoise Combes, a renown astrophysicist from Collège de France. Françoise is here as visiting chair within the University of Trento-College de France exchange program for Professors. She will be delivering a seminar by the title of “Black Holes and Active Galaxy Nuclei” and a colloquium by the title of “The Puzzle of Dark Matter”. With the rest of our group we had a nice lunch together at Orostube in Povo, where the carbonara pizza I ate was particularly good and worthy of a picture! Welcome Françoise!
Visit by Anish Ghoshal
This week we have Anish Ghoshal, currently a postdoc at the University of Warsaw, visiting us for a couple of days. Anish is visiting to work on a couple of projects both with me and Max Rinaldi, respectively on novel dark matter production mechanisms, and inflation. Welcome Anish!
Visit by Michael Zantedeschi
This week we have Michael Zantedeschi, currently a postdoc at the Tsung-Dao Lee Institute, Shanghai Jiao Tong University (in the group of Luca Visinelli), visiting us for a couple of days. Michael is actually not new to Trento, having been an undergrad here (although he arrived just after I finished my undergrad, so we never overlapped). While we aren’t directly working together (yet), we will be brainstorming ideas related to screened dark energy, as well as the mysterious cosmological constant. Welcome Michael!
Visit by Leonardo Giani
More visitors! This week we have Leonardo (Leo) Giani, currently a postdoc at the University of Queensland, visiting us for a couple of days. Leo and I are working on a very exciting project, which (spoiler) has to do with Laniakea, our home in the Cosmos, while also discussing other ideas more or less related to dark energy and cosmological tensions. Leo will also be delivering a seminar by the title of “Doctor suggests a new diet for Non-local gravity”. Welcome Leo!
Visit by William Giarè
This week we have William Giarè visiting us from the University of Sheffield, funded by a CosmoVerse COST STSM grant, as reported in this earlier news item. We’ll be finalizing a project exploring the state of the dark energy equation of state (pun intended), while starting up a number of other projects somewhat broadly related to cosmological tensions and the nature of dark energy. Looking forward to an exciting week of science!
Visit by Luca Visinelli
And we have more visitors: Luca Visinelli from Shanghai Jiao Tong University will also be here for the next two days! Luca is a close collaborator of mine (he is in fact the person with whom I have the most papers in common, with the reverse also holding), and is a very well-known scientist with broad research interests spanning dark matter, dark energy, and black holes. We’ll take the opportunity to catch up on the many projects we have ongoing, and Luca will also deliver a seminar by the title of “The interplay of primordial black holes and particle dark matter”. To celebrate Luca’s birthday, we enjoyed a nice dinner together with Anjan (see below) at La Grotta, one of my favorite restaurants in Trento. It’s very nice to have people travelling and visiting once more, it was definitely something I had missed during the pandemic!
Visit by Anjan Sen
I’m delighted to host my first official visito here in Trento, Anjan Sen from Jamia Millia Islamia! Anjan is a well-known cosmologist whose recent research interests include the nature of dark energy and cosmological tensions. We have never met in person but have shared many interesting email discussions, and more generally share many common interests among which the cosmological consequences of a negative cosmological constant. Anjan will be visiting us for a week and a half, and will also deliver a seminar by the title of “Story of the Dark Universe”. Looking forward to many interesting discussions!