Pasquale Dario Serpico
I am a research director at CNRS and currently head of the astroparticle & cosmology group at LAPTh (Laboratoire d’Annecy-le-vieux de Physique Théorique). Prior to arrival in France, I completed undergraduate and master studies at the University of Naples (Italy), followed by a Ph.D. at the Max-Planck-Institut für Physik and the Technical University of Munich. I have then been a postdoc at Fermilab, and CERN. I am fascinated by the fact that fundamental physics discoveries on Earth can lead to the understanding of astrophysical systems and of the Universe as a whole, and even more by the fact that observations of these large-scale systems may sometimes have implications for new physics. My interests revolve around particle cosmology topics (primordial big bang nucleosynthesis, cosmic neutrino background, relic from the early universe from WIMPs to primordial black holes…) and multi-messenger astroparticle subjects, notably involving cosmic rays, γ-rays, and gravitational waves. I am also occasionally interested in the (astro)physics of weakly interacting particles, both established ones like neutrinos (from supernovae to high-energy astrophysics) and hypothetical ones like axions and axion-like particles. The most pressing question I’d love to answer to is what constitutes the mysterious dark matter of the Universe. For the time being, I am mostly learning what it is not, notably thanks to indirect (i.e. astrophysical and cosmological) probes of proposed candidates.
