One of the most important difficulties in the physical understanding of nature is the absence of a consistent quantum mechanical theory of gravity. Two complementary ways to attack this problem consist in:
- Combining Quantum Field Theory and General Relativity, at one loop-level, and focussing on quantum aspects in black holes (Hawking radiation, including its possible experimental detection) and in cosmology (CMB anisotropies and dark energy).
- Introducing supersymmetry and non-commutative geometry to go beyond and generalize the well-established frameworks of QFT and GR. There many insights that they may provide a more powerful approach to fundamental interactions which will allow to develop a true quantum gravity theory.
At present the main research lines and topics are the followings:
- Improving the general understanding of quantum processes in strong gravitational fields and the emergences of new spacetime symmetries.
- Exploring ways to detect experimentally these effects, of which the most representatives are: Hawking radiation, mini black holes at LHC, quantum effects in cosmology, the existence of large extra dimensions, etc.
