Today I received the evaluation report for Step 1 of my ERC Starting Grant application, which was unsurprisingly unsuccessful - as I promised in an earlier news item, I have decided to openly report the outcome of the evaluation to help normalize otherwise taboo discussions about lack of success in academia. I received a “B” (proposal of high quality but not sufficient to pass to Step 2 of the evaluation), which means I am blocked from applying for a further year. The comments from the 4 reviewers were actually extremely positive (their ratings included 7 “exceptional”, 3 “excellent”, and 2 “very good”), and the high-risk high-gain nature of the project was clearly appreciated. The main issue identified by more than one reviewers was that I probably put too much at once - a subset of the proposal focusing on 2/3 of the ideas I put out there would probably have stood a much better chance. This was a very useful experience, the reviewer comments were very helpful and I have to say somewhat reassuring, so at this point there’s not much more I can do than roll up my sleeves, while looking forward to trying again in 2024 taking this feedback into account!
PhD positions at the University of Trento
The selection for admission to the 39th cycle of the PhD in Physics at the University of Trento is now open, see this link. For interested students not familiar with the procedure, this is done at a centralized (departmental) level, rather than by individual supervisors, through a committee of (typically) four people, which varies each year. There are a total of 22+1 positions, 19+1 of which with scholarship, of which 15+1 on a specific topic and the remaining 4 “free”: since I am not funding any “specific topic” position, students interested in working with me will have to compete for the 4 free fellowships, which means that there is no guarantee I will actually get to have an incoming PhD student this year - note that competition for these free fellowships is typically extremely tough, and it is recommended that if you are interested in working with someone specific, you should explicitly mention this in the cover letter. For a rough guideline on possible topics one could work on with me, please see this link (Section “First call 39° cycle - Other research topics”), and refer to the topics “Dark matter and dark energy in the era of precision multi-messenger cosmology and cosmic tensions (Vagnozzi)” and “Black holes as windows onto fundamental physics (Vagnozzi)” (note, however, that these are not binding). The deadline for applying is May 31 at 16:00 Italy time - please spread the word, and apply if you are interested!
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!
Media coverage for asteroid paper
Our work the use of asteroids to search for fifth forces has been picked up by Vice, who interviewed first author Yu-Dai Tsai. You can read their piece here:
www.vice.com/en/article/z3mx4a/scientists-want-to-use-asteroids-to-search-for-hidden-fifth-force
Asteroid and fifth forces paper published in JCAP!
My paper with Yu-Dai Tsai, Youjia Wu, and Luca Visinelli on the use of asteroids as a probe of fifth forces, which I previously reported on in an earlier news item, has now officially been published in JCAP! The full bibliographic coordinates for the paper are JCAP 2304 (2023) 031. Here is the link to the paper.
SIGRAV Prize!
I am honored to announce that I have been awarded the 2023 SIGRAV Prize (yes, given the day, I did initially think this was an April’s Fool)! This is one of the most prestigious Italian early-career awards in my field, and is awarded by the Italian Society for General Relativity and Gravitation (SIGRAV) to under-40 promising Italian researchers who have made important contributions to the fields of gravitation, astrophysics, and cosmology. It is a true honor to receive this Prize, which boasts a prestigious list of previous winners, back then young but now all tremendously successful researchers and most of them leaders in their fields, among whom (just to name a few): Augusto Sagnotti, Massimo Bianchi, Massimo Giovannini, Paolo Pani, Alessandra Buonanno, Alberto Vecchio, Rosalba Perna, Mariafelicia De Laurentis, Enrico Barausse, Marica Branchesi, and Davide Gerosa. I will be receiving the Prize (a silver medal) and delivering a plenary talk about my work at the XXV SIGRAV conference in Trieste this September, where the other winners will also be awarded (the other SIGRAV Prize has been awarded to Giulia Gubitosi, whereas the Amaldi medals have been awarded to my colleague and collaborator Joe Silk and Gabriele Veneziano). It is always great to be recognized in one’s home country, and I would like to sincerely thank my mentors and collaborators, without whom this would not have been possible!
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!
Caritro Postdoctoral Fellowship
We’re hiring, or rather, trying to hire! The call for the 2023 Caritro Postdoctoral Fellowships is open, and the Theoretical Gravitation and Cosmology group led by Max Rinaldi and myself expects to be able to support at most one application. Caritro Fellowships are founded by the Caritro Foundation, and are meant to offer opportunities for professional growth to young researchers who have not turned 35 years old at the start date of the project, through support for research projects with a maximum duration of 24 months to be started in 2023, whose results are expected to benefit (broadly intended) the Province of Trento. We are looking for a young researcher below the age of 35, already in possession of a PhD, and with an excellent research track in cosmology and gravitation broadly intended, with a broad profile at the interface of theory and data, and experience in tests of fundamental physics from cosmological and astrophysical data. If you are interested, please send us an expression of interest following the indications provided in our INSPIRE job ad (with material preferably sent to this AJO eDelivery link - note that there are several stages of selection, please see towards the end of the INSPIRE job ad for more details): please get in touch if you are interested!
Physics Frontiers Random Questions interview on YouTube
The Random Questions video interview associated to the Physics Frontiers podcast episode on my primordial graviton background paper, which I previously reported on in an earlier news item, has now been published on YouTube. You can find it here, where you can listen to Jim and I discuss a few (truly) random things, from the way I get my ideas, to my career, to culture shock, and so on. I hope you will enjoy it!
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.
Teaching starts today!
Today marks the start of the new semester, and with it of my teaching duties. I have a particularly heavy teaching load this semester (as a result of my having started mid-semester in October, which implied I obviously could not teach classes in the previous semester), where I’ll be lecturing General Physics I part 2 (basically Classical Thermodynamics, roughly following Zemansky) for the Mathematics BSc, Advanced Topics in Theoretical Physics (which, despite the cryptic name, is an advanced course in Modern Cosmology, which will more or less cover Chapters 1-8 of Dodelson) for the Physics MSc, as well as within the Percorso di Approfondimento in Fisica (PAF), a supplement lecture series for the Physics BSc aimed towards particularly capable and motivated students. Needless to say, I already know that throughout the semester research will proceed on a very low gear in the best of cases (and I hope my collaborators won’t hate me for this! 😝). However, despite the overall heavy load, I really look forward to teaching and interacting with bright young minds! As an aside, all my teaching material (notes, slides, exams, solutions, and so on) will be available, while being regularly updated, on the English and Italian versions of my teaching page.
LQG and Sgr A* paper published in ApJ!
My paper with Misba Afrin and Sushant Ghosh on Loop Quantum Gravity and the shadow of Sgr A*, which I previously reported on in an earlier news item, has now officially been published in ApJ! The full bibliographic coordinates for the paper are Astrophys. J. 944 (2023) 149. Here is the link to the paper (which is published Open Access).
Physics Frontiers podcast episode on the primordial graviton background
In early December 2022 I had the pleasure to be interviewed by Jim Rantschler for his well-known Physics Frontiers podcast, where we talked about my primordial graviton background paper, other stuff in physics, and life in general. The podcast episode is now officially out, and you can find it here, or if you prefer on Spotify. There will also be an associated Random Questions video interview which will appear on the podcast’s YouTube channel in the coming weeks. It was great fun chatting to Jim, and I hope you enjoy the interview!
Early dark energy and massive neutrinos paper published in MNRAS!
My paper with Alex Reeves, Laura Herold, Blake Sherwin, and Elisa Ferreira on early dark energy and massive neutrinos, which I previously reported on in an earlier news item, has now officially been published in MNRAS! The full bibliographic coordinates for the paper are Mon. Not. Roy. Astron. Soc. 520 (2023) 3688. Here is the link to the paper (which is published Open Access).
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!
Universe special issue (successfully) closed
The Universe Special Issue “Dark Matter and Dark Energy: Particle Physics, Cosmology, and Experimental Searches” I guest edited together with Eleonora Di Valentino, Alessandro Melchiorri, Olga Mena, and Luca Visinelli, has officially closed today. I am happy say that it was a great success: we published 21 papers, some of which either already of very high impact, or whose impact I expect will be very high. Some highlights of the Special Issue include the classic Mazur-Mottola 2001 gravastar paper (with nearly 1000 citations!), which had previously remained unpublished for over two decades, with a similar fate for the classic Benaoum 2002 modified Chaplygin gas paper, and finally a nice review on dark radiation by Archidiacono and Gariazzo. It was a great fun to work on this Special Issue, and thanks to all the authors for their very nice contributions!
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!
UniVersum IV
Really excited to be attending UniVersum IV, the fourth edition of the UniVersum series of cosmology meetings, roughly the Italian equivalent of UKCosmo for the UK, or IberiCos for Spain-Portugal. This year’s edition is held, excitingly, in Trento! It also happens to be my first in-person conference after the pandemic. I will be giving a keynote talk on “Cosmic acceleration: now, then, and back then”, whose slides you can find here. Looking forward to lots of interesting discussions!
Associated to TIFPA-INFN
As of today I’m officially associated to INFN, the Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics. I’m associated through our local TIFPA center, which stands for “Trento Institute for Fundamental Physics and Applications”. In particular, I’ll be a member of the FLAG Iniziativa Specifica, which stands for “Quantum Fields in Gravity, Cosmology and Black Holes”, and focuses on a number of themes which include early-Universe cosmology and black hole physics. Looking forward to many interesting discussions which will come out of this, especially from FLAG!
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.
