COSMIC WISPER :
Gonzalo Villa
Current position:
PhD student
Affiliation:
DAMTP – University of Cambridge
Field of research:
String Cosmology
What is your career trajectory to date?
-Physics undergraduate (Complutense University of Madrid, 2016-2020),
-MASt in Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (University of Cambridge, 2020-2021),
-PhD in Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (2021-2025 expected).
What are the most exciting open questions in your research area?
Cosmological implications of string theory! These include the realization of inflation with moduli stabilization, the characteristics of axions, putative stringy features during reheating and gravitational waves at high frequencies.
What role do you think a network like COSMIC WISPers can play in developing WISP searches in Europe?
In my personal experience the COSMIC WISPers Action has already improved the collaboration among scientists at Bologna and Cambridge through the Short Term Scientific Missions and the General Meeting at Bari, which fostered discussions among the members of the Working Groups. The existence of the Action is giving further visibility to the importance of studying axions in UV complete frameworks, thus giving rise to new projects and ideas. I have no doubt that this is the case for the communities within the other Working Groups too. Furthermore, bringing together the different Working Groups has greatly enhanced the communication between communities in terms of setting common goals and a common language, which was lacking in some cases. The network is undoubtedly achieving its goals of attracting further interest to axion physics from various perspectives.
