Our people

Salvatore's research focuses on the physics of the early Universe and the initial conditions that gave rise to the cosmos we observe today as well as he investigates whether dark matter and dark energy can be explained through new physics beyond the Standard Model, such as Chern-Simons theory, which introduces exotic pseudoscalar particles known as axions. He primarily works on probing the existence of axions and axion-like particles (ALPs) through their indirect signatures, most notably cosmic birefringence—the rotation of the polarization plane of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), the earliest light emitted in the Universe. To bridge the gap between theory and observation, Salvatore combines pure theoretical model-building with advanced cosmological data analysis. He develops and optimizes high-performance numerical codes and statistical methods, such as Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) or differential equation solvers, to constrain fundamental physics using large-scale structure and CMB data. In his free time, when he is away from his laptop and blackboard, he enjoys reading books, playing video games, and discovering the most underground extreme metal bands.