ERC FUNDED PROJECTS

"Understanding the dawn of the first galaxies and how their light permeated the early Universe is at the very frontier of modern astrophysical cosmology. Generous resources, including ambitions observational programs, are being devoted to studying these epochs of Cosmic Dawn (CD) and Reionization (EoR). In order to interpret these observations, we propose to build on our widely-used, semi-numeric simulation tool, 21cmFAST, and apply it to observations. Using sub-grid, semi-analytic models, we will incorporate additional physical processes governing the evolution of sources and sinks of ionizing photons. The resulting state-of-the-art simulations will be well poised to interpret topical observations of quasar spectra and the cosmic 21cm signal. They would be both physically-motivated and fast, allowing us to rapidly explore astrophysical parameter space. We will statistically quantify the resulting degeneracies and constraints, providing a robust answer to the question, ""What can we learn from EoR/CD observations?"" As an end goal, these investigations will help us understand when the first generations of galaxies formed, how they drove the EoR, and what are the associated large-scale observational signatures."

1 468 750 €

Start date: 2015-05-01, End date: 2021-01-31

AQSuS aims at experimentally implementing analogue quantum simulation of interacting spin models in two-dimensional geometries. The proposed experimental approach paves the way to investigate a broad range of currently inaccessible quantum phenomena, for which existing analytical and numerical methods reach their limitations. Developing precisely controlled interacting quantum systems in 2D is an important current goal well beyond the field of quantum simulation and has applications in e.g. solid state physics, computing and metrology. To access these models, I propose to develop a novel circuit quantum-electrodynamics (cQED) platform based on the 3D transmon qubit architecture. This platform utilizes the highly engineerable properties and long coherence times of these qubits. A central novel idea behind AQSuS is to exploit the spatial dependence of the naturally occurring dipolar interactions between the qubits to engineer the desired spin-spin interactions. This approach avoids the complicated wiring, typical for other cQED experiments and reduces the complexity of the experimental setup. The scheme is therefore directly scalable to larger systems. The experimental goals are: 1) Demonstrate analogue quantum simulation of an interacting spin system in 1D & 2D. 2) Establish methods to precisely initialize the state of the system, control the interactions and readout single qubit states and multi-qubit correlations. 3) Investigate unobserved quantum phenomena on 2D geometries e.g. kagome and triangular lattices. 4) Study open system dynamics with interacting spin systems. AQSuS builds on my backgrounds in both superconducting qubits and quantum simulation with trapped-ions. With theory collaborators my young research group and I have recently published an article in PRB [9] describing and analysing the proposed platform. The ERC starting grant would allow me to open a big new research direction and capitalize on the foundations established over the last two years.

1 498 515 €

Start date: 2017-04-01, End date: 2022-03-31

This project will undertake the first systematic investigation of the various literary documents that circulated simultaneously in more than one language in Tuscany, and especially Florence, between the mid-13th Century and the beginning of 15th Century. During that period, Florence was both a prominent literary centre in the vernacular, and home to a renewal of classical Latin eloquence. While both fields are well studied, their interaction remains largely unexplored. This research, at the convergence of several disciplines (literature, philology, linguistics and medieval history), has a strong pioneering character. It aims at changing the perception of medieval Italian culture and interpretation of the break between medieval Culture and Humanism. For this reason, the project will develop research in varying degrees of depth. First, it will provide the first catalogue of bilingual texts and manuscripts of medieval Tuscany. Organized as a database, this tool of analysis will stir innovative research in this field, some of which will be immediately promoted during the project. Secondly, two case studies, considered as important and methodologically exemplary, will be researched in detail, through the publication of two important set of texts, of secular and religious nature : 1. The vernacular translation of the Latin Epistles of Dante Alighieri; 2. A collection of polemical, historiographical, devotional and prophetical documents produced by the Tuscan dissident Franciscans in last decades of the 14th Century. Finally, the entire team, led by the PI, will be involved in the preparation of a synthesis volume on Tuscan culture in the fourteenth century viewed through bilingualism, entitled Cartography of bilingual culture in Fourteenth-Century Tuscany. From this general map of the Italian culture of the time, no literary genre nor field (be it religious or lay) shall be excluded.

1 480 625 €

Start date: 2015-10-01, End date: 2020-09-30

Multiferroics (i.e. materials where ferroelectricity and magnetism coexist) are presently drawing enormous interests, due to their technologically-relevant multifunctional character and to the astoundingly rich playground for fundamental condensed-matter physics they constitute. Here, we put forward several concepts on how to break inversion symmetry and achieve sizable ferroelectricity in collinear magnets; our approach is corroborated via first-principles calculations as tools to quantitatively estimate relevant ferroelectric and magnetic properties as well as to reveal ab-initio the main mechanisms behind the dipolar and magnetic orders. In closer detail, we focus on the interplay between ferroelectricity and electronic degrees of freedom in magnets, i.e. on those cases where spin- or orbital- or charge-ordering can be the driving force for a spontaneous polarization to develop. Antiferromagnetism will be considered as a primary mechanism for lifting inversion symmetry; however, the effects of charge disproportionation and orbital ordering will also be studied by examining a wide class of materials, including ortho-manganites with E-type spin-arrangement, non-E-type antiferromagnets, nickelates, etc. Finally, as an example of materials-design accessible to our ab-initio approach, we use “chemistry” to break inversion symmetry by artificially constructing an oxide superlattice and propose a way to switch, via an electric field, from antiferromagnetism to ferrimagnetism. To our knowledge, the link between electronic degrees of freedom and ferroelectricity in collinear magnets is an almost totally unexplored field by ab-initio methods; indeed, its clear understanding and optimization would lead to a scientific breakthrough in the multiferroics area. Technologically, it would pave the way to materials design of magnetic ferroelectrics with properties persisting above room temperature and, therefore, to a novel generation of electrically-controlled spintronic devices

684 000 €

Start date: 2008-05-01, End date: 2012-04-30