Keywords: String Theory and Supergravity, Holography, Exceptional Geometry.

My main research interests are rooted in superstring theory and its "low-energy" limit: supergravity. I am particularly fascinated by two aspects: the compactification of the extra dimensions and the AdS/CFT correspondence. 

One of the most striking predictions of string theory is the existence of additional dimensions beyond the familiar four. Therefore, it is generally postulated that these extra dimensions form a compact space, whose detectability is out of our current experimental capabilities. Theoretically, this involves finding D-dimensional (D=10 or D=11) supergravity solutions which generically consist of a (warped) product of an external (D-d)-dimensional space and a compact internal d-dimensional one, with the presence of suitable p-form fields (fluxes). Supersymmetry plays a major role, enabling the use geometrical objects, such as G-structures, to characterise the geometry of the internal space. In this context, I have been investigating the role of exceptional geometry, a framework based on the introduction of a generalised tangent bundle transforming under the exceptional Lie group E(d)d (if D=11), which encodes diffeomorphisms and gauge freedom of the fluxes (the so-called generalised diffeomorphisms), treating them on the same footing. 

Moreover, supergravity solutions prove to be meaningful in the study of superconformal field theories, as well, through the AdS/CFT correspondence, which provides a remarkable realisation of the holographic principle in physics. One of the cutting-edge aspects of this research is the investigation of supergravity backgrounds that incorporate orbifolds, such as spindles. Initially emerging in the context of accelerating supersymmetric black holes, these objects have recently gained popularity as a novel probe to test the AdS/CFT correspondence and the new techniques in the field, such as equivariant localisation, in a setting never studied before, which includes orbifold singularities.

•   Math. Dept.