My research lies at the interface between quantum gravity and relativistic astrophysics. I work on the asymptotic-safety approach to quantum gravity and on its consequences for black holes: the physical running of Newton's coupling, quantum-corrected effective actions, and the question of whether gravitational collapse can end in a regular, singularity-free core rather than a singularity. A current line of work aims to turn regular black holes from phenomenological metrics into predictive objects — deriving them from the high-curvature dynamics of gravity, testing whether they form in collapse, studying the stability of their interiors, and computing their gravitational-wave, horizon-scale-imaging and evaporation signatures.
A common thread runs through work that is otherwise quite distant: the renormalization group and, more broadly, thinking in terms of scales. The same way of reasoning underlies my work on magnetohydrodynamic turbulence and dynamo theory — the amplification and saturation of magnetic fields in stars and accretion flows across a wide range of scales — and, over three decades at INAF, on stellar astrophysics and asteroseismology, which keeps the programme in contact with real observational data.
The group is the Catania research unit of the INFN collaboration FLAG (Fundamental Laws and Gravity).
Long-term collaborators: J. Pawlowski (Heidelberg), M. Reuter (Mainz), D. Litim (Sussex), R. Percacci (SISSA), F. Saueressig (Radboud).
Last update: July 2026