National Laboratory Astana

Nazarbayev University / National Laboratory Astana / Laboratory of Physics and Materials Science / Daniele Malafarina

Daniele Malafarina

Department
School of Sciences and Humanities, Physics, National Laboratory Astana, Laboratory of Physics and Materials Science
Title
Assistant Professor
Office
7.219
Email
daniele.malafarina@nu.edu.kz
Phone
+7(7172)704661

RESEARCH INTERESTS

 

General relativity, cosmology, black holes, singularities, semi-classical approaches to quantum gravity.

My interests in General Relativity cover exact solutions of Einstein’s field equations and analytical models for astrophysics and cosmology, Hamiltonian formulation of gravity and possible approaches to quantum gravity.

–  Gravitational collapse: In the framework of spherical collapse I have been working on the role played by pressures in the formation of black holes or naked singularities as the end-state of the complete collapse of a gravitating object.

–  Quantum-gravity: I have been working on the effects of small scale modifications to the classical relativistic framework for collapse. Quantum-gravity induced effects are thought to be important in the strong field regime towards the end of collapse and they might help resolve the formation of classical singularities.

–  Compact objects: I have been working on theoretical dynamical scenarios that lead to the formation of compact objects (not necessarily black holes). These compact sources can be used to model the remnants of supernovae explosions as well as the supermassive object that exist at the center of galaxies.

–  Observational features of naked singularities and exotic compact objects: I haveve been working on the possible observational signatures of exotic compact sources as described by spacetimes with naked singularities. I studied the properties of accretion disks around a variety of spherically symmetric and axially symmetric spacetimes and compared with the properties of disks around a Schwarzschild black hole.

–  Axially symmetric space-times: I studied topological and physical properties of axially symmetric metrics and I have been working on the construction of physically viable sources for a specific class of static metrics.

– Thin matter shells: I studied the dynamics of thin shells with general equation of state. Shells can be used as theoretical toy models to investigate gravitational collapse issues and as possible sources for dark energy and dark matter.

– Hamiltonian gravity: I have been studying the Hamiltonian formulation of gravity and specifically thin shells systems in the canonical framework. In particular I’ve been working on the derivation of equations of motion from variational principles and the Hamiltonian formulation for a system composed of n spherical thin matter shells with general equation of state that correctly reproduces the ADM mass of the system.

PERSONAL INFORMATION

I was born in Milan, Italy. I got my masters degree and Ph.D in Milan. During the Ph.D I spent one year at the Institute of Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, Poland. I did Postdocs in Poland (Institute if Mathematics of The Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw), India (Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai) and China (Fudan University, Shanghai). Besides science I have a passion for science fiction (I wrote a novel together with two other people), cinema, theater (I wrote and staged a play in 2007 in Milan) and tennis (I write occasionally for a tennis website and a magazine).