Research interests
My research interests mainly focus on statistical field theory and critical phenomena, rough energy landscapes, spin-glass models and interdisciplinary applications.
My work so far has dealt with a variety of topics:
Renormalization Group techniques and critical phenomena;
Problems at the crossroads between the physics of glasses and the mathematics of constrained satisfiability;
Mean-field models for amorphous solids under shear deformations;
Development of dynamical mean-field theory formalism to investigate out-of-equilibrium dynamics and aging;
In-depth analysis of theoretical ecology models.
Spin glasses and perturbative RG
My expertise is mainly related to infinite-dimensional models. Nevertheless, to cover a broader spectrum of phenomena and extend predictions beyond mean field, I have also worked out perturbative renormalization group techniques in Edwards-Anderson models and Bethe lattices.
The theoretical framework proposed in Ref [4], valid both in the ordered and disordered phase, focuses on the definition of a Bethe multi-layer construction. It allows us to write a perturbative series in terms of fat diagrams and to compute finite-size corrections near the critical point.
In collaboration with M. Baity-Jesi, in 2023 I wrote the review "Introduction to the Theory of Spin Glasses", which appeared as a Chapter of the 2nd edition of "Encyclopaedia of Cond. Matt. Physics" by Elsevier [14].
Constraint satisfaction problems
One topical aspect of my doctoral research concerned the exact derivation of an effective free energy functional (Thouless-Anderson-Palmer free energy) to investigate critical properties of the spherical perceptron in the non-convex phase.
Such a formalism has been also generalized to high-dimensional sphere models near jamming (a.k.a. a rigidity transition taking place inside the glassy phase at zero temperature).
Jamming and Yielding transitions
The response of amorphous solids to an applied shear deformation is a timely problem, both in fundamental and applied research. To address challenging questions in this field, I focused on systems of hard spheres (and variants modelled by a square-well potential with a small attractive part) in infinite dimensions taken as a reference model for colloidal systems and granular matter. This approach allowed us to perform a systematic exploration of the phase diagram.
Models and Applications in Ecology & Evolution
I am also interested in investigating emergent phenomena and critical, collective dynamics in large interacting ecosystems through methods and concepts rooted in statistical physics.
During the last (almost) five years, I have extensively been working on two benchmarks in theoretical ecology:
i) a reformulation of MacArthur's model;
ii) the random Lotka-Volterra model, both with competitive and intra-specific cooperative interactions.
More details can be found in Refs. [7], [10 - 13], [15 - 17].
In 2022, I also wrote a short review on disordered system methods applied to ecology and evolution as a Special Issue of "Spin Glass Theory and Far Beyond - 40 Years later".
See Ref. [13].