Research Projects

Astrochemistry in Calorimetry

I am working on using the observable properties of the interstellar medium to characterize the energy content deposited by jets at interaction sites. In turn, the retrieval of these properties allows us to make reliable measurements of jet power with a method called calorimetry.

These interaction sites are known to exist within the galactic population of X-ray binaries, and have classically been monitored in the radio band (Dubner et al 1998, Gallo et al. 2005, Atri et al. 2025, Motta et al. 2025, Mariani et al. 2025).

My particular approach tackles molecular line emission in the sub-mm band to solve the main uncertainties raised by continuum observation methods (Tetarenko et al. 2018, Tetarenko et al 2020). Find my latest paper here.

The image on the right was supplied by Dr. Alexandra Tetarenko (my PhD thesis supervisor). Get more info about Dr. Tetarenko's work and group here.

Exoplanet detection

During my years at Observatory Astronòmic Albanyà I got to work on exoplanets while collaborating with the TFOP-SG1 group from the TESS mission.

I used the in-site facilities at the observatory to produce and reduce data with differential photometry techniques.

During my stay I mentored a few undergraduate students:

The results produced by my mentees and myself were featured in several publications on renowned journals.

SMBHs Formation and Evolution

During my undergrad and MSc, I had the chance of working with data from the group led by Dr. Eduard Salvador-Solé to conduct research about Supermassive Black Hole (SMBH) formation and evolution.

The group uses an amazingly complete galaxy formation and evolution analytic model (AMIGA, Manrique et al. 2015) with very few free parameters that has been thoroughly adjusted throughout the years, making solid and reliable predictions.

We made an observational prediction for the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) to potentially probe the SMBH seeds using the SMBH merger history and their Gravitational Wave data (find my BSc and MSc theses in these links).

The numerical simulations view of jet-ISM interactions

Jet-ISM interactions are key in the measurement of jet power and the better understanding of jet launching mechanisms.

However, their detailed dynamics are very hard to constrain with imaging only, since the evolution timescales of jet driven large scale structures can easily exceed tens of thousands of years.

Luckily, the use of relativistic hydrodynamic simulations bridges the gap between theory and observations, allowing us to get more insight on the intricate dynamics of these regions (e.g., Bosch-Ramon et al. 2011, Gasealahwe et al. 2025, Savard et al. 2025.

Lately, I'm delving into this work myself to bridge the observational behavior of some BHXB systems to their interaction history.

The image on the right is from Gasealahwe et al. 2025.