ONGOING PROJECTS 

• BUILDING UNIVERSE project: I am the PI of the project “Building the Universe: From Inflation to Dark Matter (BuildingUniverse)”. This initiative aims to i) determine the discriminating power of future CMB experiments and GW observations to restrict inflationary observables and the abundance of primordial black holes as dark matter, ii) study the connection of inflationary physics and primordial black hole formation to low-energy observables such as the Higgs self-coupling and the top quark Yukawa coupling, iii) study the direct production of DM from post-inflationary physics, iv) develop a differentiated search strategy for DM using direct and indirect searches as well as direct production and v) study the impact of specific DM scenarios in the cosmological observables.

• COGWAY project: I am the PI of the FCT-NAWA collaboration project “Cosmological Impact of Gravitational Wave Observations” (COGWAy). The main goal of this initiative is to investigate whether current and planned gravitational wave detectors such as KAGRA, LISA or Pulsar Timing Arrays have the potential to detect signals of a non-standard pre-big bang nucleosynthesis era. The associated funding facilitates the mobility of the involved Polish and Portuguese teams during the project duration, with active participation of PhD students. 

• ADIEU project: I am the PI of the FCT-CAMPUSFRANCE collaboration project “Aspects of Dark Interactions in the Early Universe” (ADIEU). The main goal of this initiative is to investigate the generic implications of dark energy-dark matter interactions in the early Universe.  By considering a scalar-tensor framework involving conformal and disformal couplings, the team will aim to construct a general family of coupled quintessence models leading to scaling solutions during radiation domination and able to enhance the growth of perturbations prior to matter-radiation equality. Aspects such as virialization and potential emission of gravitational waves by the resulting structures will be considered. 

Have a look to my list of publications and selected talks for more details.