My research lies at the interface between quantum gravity and relativistic astrophysics. I work on the asymptotic-safety approach to quantum gravity and on its consequences for black holes: the physical running of Newton's coupling, quantum-corrected effective actions, and the question of whether gravitational collapse can end in a regular, singularity-free core rather than a singularity. A current line of work aims to turn regular black holes from phenomenological metrics into predictive objects — deriving them from the high-curvature dynamics of gravity, testing whether they form in collapse, studying the stability of their interiors, and computing their gravitational-wave, horizon-scale-imaging and evaporation signatures.
A common thread runs through work that is otherwise quite distant: the renormalization group and, more broadly, thinking in terms of scales. The same way of reasoning underlies my work on magnetohydrodynamic turbulence and dynamo theory — the amplification and saturation of magnetic fields in stars and accretion flows across a wide range of scales — and, over three decades at INAF, on stellar astrophysics and asteroseismology, which keeps the programme in contact with real observational data.
Long-term collaborators: J. Pawlowski (Heidelberg), M. Reuter (Mainz), D. Litim (Sussex), R. Percacci (SISSA), F. Saueressig (Radboud).
Last update: October 2026