Gravity is the research focus of Enrico Barausse, physicist and former SISSA PhD student, who has just come back to Trieste with an ERC worth 2 million Euro. The project, entitled “GRavity from Astrophysical to Microscopic Scales - GRAMS” aims at developing and testing new gravitational theories that may explain large and small-scale phenomena without the involvement of dark energy, thus overcoming general relativity. In particular, the team led by Barausse will use gravitational waves observations acquired through LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) and Virgo detectors. It will also take part in LISA (Laser Interferometer Space Antenna), the European Space Agency mission designed to the development of the first space-based gravitational wave detector.
Enrico Barausse comes back to SISSA as Associate Professor within the Astroparticle group, after spending ten years abroad, in the United States, in Canada and then in Paris. Thanks to the five-year funding, he will be able to benefit from the collaboration of five post-doc researchers who will work alongside two doctoral students. With this Consolidator grant, SISSA reaches 22 ERC grants awarded from the foundation of the European Research Council, thus confirming its excellence and its place among the top host Italian institutions, especially with respect to the small faculty size.
See here for more information about ERC grants at SISSA.
Image by NASA/C. Henze