Research Interest
General Relativity, quantum gravity, black holes, naked singularities, cosmology.
More in detail:
General relativity, cosmology, black holes, singularities, semiclassical approaches to quantum gravity
My interests in General Relativity cover exact solutions of Einstein’s field equations and analytical models for astrophysics and cosmology, Hamiltonian formulation of gravity and possible approaches to quantum gravity.
– Gravitational collapse: In the framework of spherical collapse I have been working on the role played by pressures in the formation of black holes or naked singularities as the end-state of the complete collapse of a gravitating object.
– Quantum-gravity: I have been working on the effects of small scale modifications to the classical relativistic framework for collapse. Quantum-gravity induced effects are thought to be important in the strong field regime towards the end of collapse and they might help resolve the formation of classical singularities.
– Compact objects: I have been working on theoretical dynamical scenarios that lead to the formation of compact objects (not necessarily black holes). These compact sources can be used to model the remnants of supernovae explosions as well as the supermassive object that exist at the center of galaxies.
– Observational features of naked singularities and exotic compact objects: I haveve been working on the possible observational signatures of exotic compact sources as described by spacetimes with naked singularities. I studied the properties of accretion disks around a variety of spherically symmetric and axially symmetric spacetimes and compared with the properties of disks around a Schwarzschild black hole.
– Axially symmetric space-times: I studied topological and physical properties of axially symmetric metrics and I have been working on the construction of physically viable sources for a specific class of static metrics.
– Thin matter shells: I studied the dynamics of thin shells with general equation of state. Shells can be used as theoretical toy models to investigate gravitational collapse issues and as possible sources for dark energy and dark matter.
– Hamiltonian gravity: I have been studying the Hamiltonian formulation of gravity and specifically thin shells systems in the canonical framework. In particular I’ve been working on the derivation of equations of motion from variational principles and the Hamiltonian formulation for a system composed of n spherical thin matter shells with general equation of state that correctly reproduces the ADM mass of the system.
I was born in Milan, Italy. I got my masters degree and Ph.D in Milan. During the Ph.D I spent one year at the Institute of Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, Poland. I did Postdocs in Poland (Institute if Mathematics of The Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw), India (Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai) and China (Fudan University, Shanghai). Besides science I have a passion for science fiction (I wrote a novel together with two other people), cinema, theater (I wrote and staged a play in 2007 in Milan) and tennis (I write occasionally for a tennis website and a magazine).
– Non-spherical Sources of Static Gravitational Fields: Investigating the Boundary of the No-hair Theorem, Gen. Rel. and Grav. 37, 1371 (2005). (with L. Herrera, G. Magli)
– A New Derivation of the Variational Principle for the Dynamics of Gravitating Spherical Shells, Phys. Rev. D, 74(8), 084017 (2006). (with J. Kijowski, G. Magli)
– The Hamiltonian formulation for the dynamics of a multishell self-gravitating system, J. Math. Phys. 51, 072504 (2010). (with J. Kijowski, G. Magli)
– Naked singularities as particle accelerators II, Phys. Rev. D, 83 064007 (2011). (with P.S. Joshi and M. Patil)
– Recent developments in gravitational collapse and spacetime singularities, Int. J. Mod. Phys. D, 20 2641 (2011). (invited review article, with P.S. Joshi)
– Circular geodesics and accretion disks in Janis-Newman-Winicour and Gamma metric, Phys. Rev. D 85, 104031 (2012). (with P.S. Joshi, M. Patil and A.N. Chowdhury)
– Instability of black hole formation under small pressure perturbations, Gen. Rel. Grav. 45(2), 305 (2013). (with P.S. Joshi)
– Non-singular quantum-inspired gravitational collapse, Phys. Rev. D 88, 044009 (2013). (with C. Bambi and L. Modesto)
– Kα iron line profile from accretion disks around regular and singular exotic compact objects, Phys. Rev. D, 88, 064022 (2013). (with C. Bambi)
– Distinguishing black holes from naked singularities through their accretion disk properties, Class. Quantum Grav. 31, 015002 (2014). (with R. Narayan and P.S. Joshi)
– Terminating black holes in asymptotically free quantum gravity, Eur. Phys. J. C 74, 2767 (2014). (with C. Bambi and L. Modesto)
– Note on the effect of a massive accretion disk in the measurements of black hole spins, Phys. Rev. D, 89, 127302 (2014). (with C. Bambi and N. Tsukamoto)
– Gravitational Collapse of Hagedorn fluids, Phys. Rev. D 93, 104042, (2016).
– Classical Collapse to Black Holes and Quantum Bounces: A Review, Universe 3(2), 48, (2017).
– Observational properties of rigidly rotating dust configurations, Eur. Phys. J. C 77, 461 (2017). (with B. Ilyas, J. Yang and C. Bambi)
To see the full list of publications, click here.
Phys201 – Introductory Astronomy
Phys202 – Introductory Astrophysics
Phys221 – Classical Mechanics I
Phys222 – Classical Mechanics II
Phys463 – Astrophysics and General Relativity
Phys505 – Classical Mechanics (graduate)
