Fitxa persona

I am a theoretical physicist from the city of Valencia. I studied my Bachelor's Degree in Physics at Universitat de València (UV) between 2019 and 2023, and in the following academic year 2023-2024, I completed a Master's Degree in Advanced Physics at UV (taught largely in English) with a specialization in Theoretical Physics. At the same time, I enjoyed an introductory research scholarship, INTRO IFIC-UV 2023, jointly granted by the Instituto de Física Corpuscular (IFIC, a mixed CSIC-UV center) and UV. The scholarship lasted for 8 consecutive months (640 hours, 20 hours per week), and I worked under the supervision of Adrián del Río Vega on the project "Quantum fields and gravitation". Our work involved learning and applying techniques from Quantum Field Theory in Curved Spacetimes, and was focused on the Static and Dynamic Casimir Effect. The first one consists on a quantum field confined between two static parallel conducting plates. In this environment, the “natural” quantum vacuum has non-zero energy and, as a consequence, a force arises between the plates; in the second, one of the parallel plates is moving, and the natural vacuum before and after the movement are not the same in general, resulting in a creation of particles due to this dynamical background. These phenomena, although not strictly related with gravity, have close analogues in gravitational physics: in a gravitational context, the quantum vacuum also has non-zero energy, and it can significantly alter the space-time geometry. Similarly, a dynamical gravitational background, such as an expanding universe, can give rise to particle creation.

During that same year, I also carried out a 150-hour-long research stay (3 weeks, full-time), part of the Master's curriculum, aimed at delving into research tasks, understanding the inner workings of a research group, and complementing the education of the students who follow a theoretical itinerary by integrating them into experimental groups, but in areas of physics related to their specialty. I used this opportunity to deepen my analysis of the Dynamic Casimir Effect, and dedicated the project to solving the infinite set of coupled differential equations that govern this phenomenon, using numerical techniques. When I decided to carry out a computational project like this, I immediately thought of the world-renowned Valencia Virgo Group (https://www.uv.es/virgogroup/index.html), from the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics at UV. Led by José Antonio Font, the group focuses on Numerical Relativity and studies gravitational wave sources, from their simulation to the detection and processing of experimental data from the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA observatories. They also simulate other objects, such as neutron stars or accretion disks, and a significant portion of them study the implementation of Machine Learning for experimental data processing and signal identification. This project, which I titled “Computational Approach to the Dynamical Casimir Effect”, was supervised by Raimon Luna Perelló, who taught me valuable Python programming skills and code optimization techniques, as well as standard numerical methods to solve complex differential equations. These numerical tools reach where the analytical ones don’t, and allow us to gain insight from highly non-trivial systems.

I wrote my Master’s Thesis on the topic “Renormalisation of the Stress-Energy Tensor of a Quantum Scalar Field inside a Black Hole”, also under the supervision of Adrian del Río Vega. This project made me put to use all the notions on Quantum Field Theory on Curved Spacetimes that I had gathered throughout the year, as well as my prior knowledge on General Relativity. The work involved computing the renormalized stress-energy tensor (RSET) of a quantum scalar field in the interior region of a Schwarzschild black hole spacetime, with the help of a Mathematica code and a few approximations. Our results showed that this tensor diverged in the singularity, and thus, incorporating the quantum field as an energy source in the Einstein equations could smooth the curvature singularity that appears classically at the center of the black hole. With this, my formative years at university came to an end, achieving an excellent academic record with an average grade of 8.4/10 on my Bachelor’s Degree and 9.15/10 on my Master’s.

In November 2024, I began my PhD studies at the Universitat de València, with a contract funded by the CIACIF 2024 scholarships, granted by the Generalitat Valenciana. My PhD supervisor is Adrián del Río Vega, who belongs to the Quantum Gravity Group (http://www.uv-qg.es/#1) from the Theoretical Phisics Department at Universitat de València. My Thesis project is titled “Gravitational Wave Memory on Quantum Fields”, and its main goal will be to evaluate if a gravitational wave can leave a permanent imprint on a quantum system even after its passage, just as it does at the classical level on a system of two point-like masses. This will be relevant in future gravitational wave detectors, which will be much more sophisticated than just a classical system of two point-like masses. Nevertheless, I have not yet taken on this project, since I have been continuing the work developed in my Master’s Thesis. Therefore, during the first year of my PhD, my research has focused on the computation of renormalized observables (two-point function and stress-energy tensor) inside a Schwarzschild black hole, this time solving the problem exactly, not using approximations. This involves solving the modes of the quantum fields exactly via the Regge-Wheeler equation, using Differential Equations Methods, obtaining their behaviour for high frequencies and angular momenta using an asymptotic expansion (method known as adiabatic regularization), and then subtracting the divergent contributions to the observable. 

During the first year of my PhD, I participated in several formative activities and scientific meetings. I assisted the first edition of the “Tales of Black Holes” international doctoral school (https://talesofblackholes.iaa.csic.es), held in Granada in June 2025. The program consisted in lectures covering various aspects of black hole research, delivered by leading experts in their respective fields, as well as in hands-on projects and student talks. The 20 attendees were selected on a competitive basis. I delivered a talk on the topic “Renormalized Vacuum Polarization inside a Black Hole using Adiabatic Regularization”. In September 2025, I also attended the 2025 Spanish & Portuguese Relativity Meeting (EREP 2025, https://erep2025.uafg.ua.es/en), where I delivered a talk on the topic “Adiabatic Regularization for Quantum Fields inside Black Holes”. The event is organized by the Spanish Society of Gravitation and Relativity (SEGRE), and is the most prominent conference on gravitation and relativity in the Iberian Peninsula. In the field of teaching, in this past year I began my career as an associate professor, teaching the problem-solving lessons of the Quantum Physics 1 course on the first semester of the 2025-2026 academic year at the Faculty of Physics of UV.

Currently, I am spending the first months of my second year carrying out a research stay at the Center for Astrophysics and Gravitation (CENTRA), at Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), Lisbon. This stay is funded by a “Becas de Movilidad Internacional de Doctorado 2026” scholarship, awarded by Universitat de València to 40 PhD candidates selected on a competitive basis across all disciplines. Here I am developing a parallel project to my PHD’s project which revolves around the question of whether semiclassical gravity allows for ultracompact stars surpassing de Buchdahl limit, on collaboration with Valentín Boyanov Savov, a member of the Gravitation in Técnico (GRIT) group. His research primarily covers topics related to semiclassical gravity, with a particular focus on semiclassical black hole dynamics, black hole evaporation, and backreaction, but also extends to classical gravity (general relativity), including gravitational waves. Our work is consisting in integrating the semiclassical Einstein’s equations for a perfect fluid star with a linear equation of state from the center to its surface, imposing the conditions of a regular, stable star (finite central pressure, etc.). To account for the backreaction effects, we are using a particular approximation of the RSET, the Anderson-Hiscock-Samuel approximation for the RSET of massless scalar fields in spherical symmetry, and then applying an order-reduction method to obtain a second-order semiclassical system of equations. These semiclassical backreaction effects seem to, in fact, allow for stars that surpass the Buchdahl limit, which is the maximum compactness attainable in General Relativity for regular stars in equilibrium satisfying certain reasonable properties.