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Dr Gabriele Tartaglino Mazzucchelli

Senior Lecturer

Mathematics
Faculty of Science
g.tartaglino-mazzucchelli@uq.edu.au
+61 7 336 58839

Overview

Dr Gabriele Tartaglino-Mazzucchelli's research interests include topics in theoretical physics of fundamental interactions and mathematical physics like supersymmetry, supergravity and superspaces in various space-time dimensions, extended supersymmetry, covariant formulations of superstrings, complex geometry, quantum gravity, holography, (A)dS/CFT and integrability.

Since October 2019 Dr Tartaglino-Mazzucchelli has joined the School of Mathematics & Physics at the University of Queensland (UQ) as Senior Lecturer (Level C), Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellow.

Dr Tartaglino-Mazzucchelli's obtained his PhD at the University of Milano Bicocca in November 2006. After that, and before joining UQ, he has held several academic appointments and fellowships in Australia (UQ and The University of Western Australia), Belgium (KULeuven U.), Sweden (Uppsala U.), Switzerland (Bern U.), and the USA (Maryland U.).

So far in his career, Dr Tartaglino-Mazzucchelli's successfully attracted competitive research grants and awards for approximatively two million Australian dollars including, among other grants, a Marie Curie fellowship, an ARC DECRA award, and an ARC Future Fellowship – some of the most prestigious fellowships available to early and middle career researchers in Europe and Australia.

Research Interests

  • New solvable deformations of quantum field theories, and gravity
    New solvable deformations of quantum field theories have recently attracted widespread attention. This project aims to significantly advance this research by employing the solvability properties of supersymmetry and integrability. Expected outcomes will resolve open problems such as the classification of solvable deformations, their relation to gravity theories, and the solvability of correlators. Pioneering tools developed in this project promise to impact several branches of mathematical physics and greatly enhance our knowledge of important models such as non-local field theories, integrable models, and quantum gravity.
  • Supersymmetry and Supergravity: New Approaches and Applications
    During the last four decades, supersymmetry and supergravity have been at the forefront of theoretical and mathematical physics. Despite that, major conceptual problems in the description of general supergravity-matter couplings are still unsolved. Based on recent results, this proposal is for cutting edge interdisciplinary research to develop new mathematical techniques and apply them to the study of the dynamics of quantum field and string theories, matter-coupled gravity, higher-spin theories and holographic dualities possessing supersymmetrytry. The outcomes of this project will advance our knowledge of supersymmetry and its mathematical formulation, playing a key role in the solution of some of the most challenging open problems in quantum gravity and cosmology.

Research Impacts

Dr Gabriele Tartaglino-Mazzucchelli is an international expert on supersymmetry and supergravity who obtained in the last fifteen years recognised results in the development of mathematical formalisms to treat supersymmetry in a manifest way. His research aims at a fundamental mathematical treatment of supersymmetric models analogously to how tensor calculus, and the field of differential geometry, have been at the basis of the formulation of General Relativity. In the broad aim of research in string theory and related topics, he also worked on holographic dualities and integrability within the AdS/CFT correspondence.

Qualifications

  • Doctorate of Philosophy in Physics and Astronomy, Universita Degli Studi di Milano - Bicocca

Publications

View all Publications

Grants

View all Grants

Supervision

  • Deformations of supersymmetric quantum field theories and gravity

    Doctor Philosophy

  • Supersymmetric field theories on curved manifolds and applications

    Doctor Philosophy

  • Solvable supersymmetric field theories, string theory and AdS/CFT

    Doctor Philosophy

View all Supervision

Available Projects

  • Supersymmetric field theories on curved backgrounds and applications

    During the last four decades, supersymmetry has been at the forefront of theoretical and mathematical physics of fundamental interactions. It played a crucial role in constructing models aimed at the unification of all forces including quantum gravity, namely string theory. Supersymmetry has also led to several new developments in mathematical physics such as, for example, the study of conformal field theories (that play a fundamental role in string theory and in the description of phase transitions in statistical mechanics) and integrable systems.

    The analysis of supersymmetric theories on curved backgrounds has made possible the exact computation of several important observables. For instance, quantum computations in (super)conformal field theories on a conformally flat background, can be extrapolated from the curved to the flat space limit. For rigid supersymmetric field theories on curved spacetimes localisation techniques (which can reduce an infinite dimensional path integral to a fine dimensional one) allow one to compute quantum observables, such as the partition function, indices, correlators or Wilson loops exactly. Remarkably, localisation has been developed also for calculations in supergravity theories and evaluation of the quantum entropy of black holes. One crucial requirement of localisation is that SUSY has to close off-shell. This leads to the natural use of covariant off-shell (superspace) techniques.

    In quantum field theories, correlation functions may contain singularities at coincident points, the so-called contact terms. They arise as higher-derivative terms in quantum effective actions on some supersymmetric gravity and gauge multiplet backgrounds. For correlation functions of symmetry currents, contact terms can lead to so-called anomalies. These manifest the breakdown of a symmetry due to short distance quantum effects. Anomalies have had a predominant role in the non-perturbative study of quantum field theory and string theory and relate to the Atiyah-Singer index theory in mathematics. In supersymmetric theories, anomalies lie in supermultiplets. Despite their importance, for general supersymmetry and spacetimes, the structure of higher-derivative invariants associated to contact terms and anomalies is not understood. These find important applications in the study supersymmetric quantum field theories, holographic correspondences between gauge and quantum gravity and related topics.

    This project aims at: i) classifying general off-shell supersymmetric curved backgrounds by mean of new mathematical techniques; ii) studying supersymmetric and superconformal field theories on curved manifolds and their applications to holographic correspondences; iii) classify the structure of supersymmetric anomalies in generality.

    This project will support the research of the ARC Future Fellowship of Dr. Gabriele Tartaglino Mazzucchelli “Supersymmetry and Supergravity: New Approaches and Applications.” The student will largely benefit from a vibrant international collaboration on supersymmetry and related topics.

  • Supersymmetry, Supergravity and String inspired models of Cosmology

    During the last four decades, supersymmetry has been at the forefront of research in theoretical and mathematical physics of fundamental interactions. It played a crucial role in constructing models aimed at the unification of all forces including quantum gravity, namely string theory. As such, an active area of research is attempting to reconcile string theory with observed cosmology. Supersymmetry has also led to several new developments in mathematical physics.

    Supergravity arises as the low-energy limit of string theory. Higher-order deformations of gravity give alternative descriptions of dark energy or dark matter and have recently become prominent in inflationary models; see for example the Starobinsky model. It has been recently shown that various higher-derivative supergravities lead to spontaneously broken supersymmetry and a dynamically generated positive cosmological constant. On one hand, this raised a renewed interest in extended supergravity models possessing de-Sitter (expanding universe) solutions in various dimensions. On the other hand, it remains an open question, and a subject of active debate in the string theory community, to understand whether these models are only effective theories or can be embedded in a consistent theory of quantum gravity.

    Another breakthrough of the last two decades in research in string theory has been the discovery of holographic correspondences. These are theoretical tools connecting (D+1)-dimensional theories of (quantum) gravity to D-dimensional Quantum Field Theories (QFTs). The term holography is used in analogy to 2D holograms that can encode information about 3D objects. The best-established holographic conjectures involve supersymmetric theories. Several attempts to describe cosmological models by using holography have also been made.

    This project aims at tackling open questions of string inspired cosmological models. A mathematical characterization of supergravity theories with spontaneously broken supersymmetry will be completed as a step towards understanding whether a positive cosmological constant and de-Sitter solutions can be consistent in string theory or different cosmological scenarios need to be found. Moreover, the project will explore also more exotic, but potentially revolutionary, holographic approaches to quantum cosmology.

  • Solvable supersymmetric field theories, string theory and AdS/CFT

    During the last four decades, supersymmetry has been at the forefront of theoretical and mathematical physics of fundamental interactions. It played a crucial role in constructing models aimed at the unification of all forces including quantum gravity, namely string theory. Supersymmetry has also led to several new developments in mathematical physics such as, for example, the study of conformal field theories (that play a fundamental role in string theory and in the description of phase transitions in statistical mechanics) and integrable systems.

    Supersymmetric quantum field theories in different space-time dimensions have been a fruitful ground of research to construct solvable models that shed new light on the dynamics of strongly coupled systems (such as the confinement of gauge theories), and our mathematical understanding of the physics of fundamental interactions. Some of the most impressive examples appeared in the last two decades in the context of the holographic AdS/CFT correspondences where integrability techniques, originally developed in statistical mechanics, started to play a crucial role in solving string theory models of quantum gravity. Holographic correspondences are theoretical tools connecting (D+1)-dimensional theories of (quantum) gravity to D-dimensional Quantum Field Theories (QFTs). The term holography is used in analogy to 2D holograms that can encode information about 3D objects. The best established holographic conjectures involve supersymmetric theories.

    This project aims at expanding our knowledge of solvable/integrable quantum field and string theories by exploiting the technical advantages existing in supersymmetric theories and their deformations.

    We will investigate deformations of integrable QFTs as a means of constructing new solvable models. Part of the project will look at a particular class of deformations, the so-called TTbar deformations, introduced by Zamolodchikov in 2004 for 2D QFTs. These deformations have received much attention in the high-energy theoretical physics community in the last few of years due to their application to the study of the AdS/CFT correspondence and for their impact in the field of 2D integrable QFTs. Extended also to dimensions higher than two, these deformations are starting to give new perspectives in understanding higher-derivative effective theories that arise in string theory and holographic correspondences where the energy spectrum can be solved exactly. Their extension to the supersymmetric case has been developed by Dr Tartaglino-Mazzucchelli, the Principal Advisor for this project, and his collaborators in a series of papers in 2018-2019. We plan to extend these results and develop a systematic understanding of supersymmetric TTbar deformations and their application to the AdS/CFT correspondence. We will then apply our findings to answer questions in these fields, including the detailed analysis of the spectrum and correlation functions of models on both sides of these correspondences.

    This cutting-edge interdisciplinary research project will connect the very strong Australian mathematical physics community working on integrable systems with the research in theoretical physics that has characterized an international effort to construct a consistent unified theory of all fundamental interactions. This novel research synergy will enhance UQ’ and Australia’s position in mathematical and theoretical physics.

View all Available Projects

Publications

Book Chapter

  • Covariant superspace approaches to N = 2 supergravity

    Kuzenko, Sergei, Raptakis, Emmanouil and Tartaglino-Mazzucchelli, Gabriele (2023). Covariant superspace approaches to N = 2 supergravity. Handbook of Quantum Gravity. (pp. 1-61) edited by Cosimo Bambi, Leonardo Modesto and Ilya Shapiro. Singapore: Springer. doi: 10.1007/978-981-19-3079-9_44-1

  • Superspace approaches to N = 1 supergravity

    Kuzenko, Sergei M., Raptakis, Emmanouil S. N. and Tartaglino-Mazzucchelli, Gabriele (2023). Superspace approaches to N = 1 supergravity. Handbook of quantum gravity. (pp. 1-51) Singapore, Singapore: Springer Nature Singapore. doi: 10.1007/978-981-19-3079-9_40-1

Journal Article

Conference Publication

  • Component reduction and the superconformal gravity invariants

    Novak, J. and Tartaglino-Mazzucchelli, G. (2018). Component reduction and the superconformal gravity invariants. 25th International Conference on Integrable Systems and Quantum Symmetries (ISQS), Prague, Czech Republic, 6-10 June 2017. Bristol, United Kingdom: IOP Publishing. doi: 10.1088/1742-6596/965/1/012045

  • On curvature squared invariants in 6D supergravity

    Novak, J. and Tartaglino-Mazzucchelli, G. (2018). On curvature squared invariants in 6D supergravity. 25th International Conference on Integrable Systems and Quantum Symmetries (ISQS), Prague, Czech Republic, 6-10 June 2017. Bristol, United Kingdom: IOP Publishing. doi: 10.1088/1742-6596/965/1/012029

  • Extended supersymmetric sigma-models in 3D AdS

    Tartaglino-Mazzucchelli, Gabriele (2013). Extended supersymmetric sigma-models in 3D AdS. Corfu Summer Institute 2012 (Corfu2012) - XVIII European Workshop on String Theory, Corfu, Greece, 8-27 September 2012. Trieste, Italy: Sissa Medialab. doi: 10.22323/1.177.0090

  • Wandering in five-dimensional curved superspace

    Kuzenko, Sergei M. and Tartaglino-Mazzucchelli, Gabriele (2008). Wandering in five-dimensional curved superspace. 3rd RTN Workshop on Constituents, Fundamental Forces Symetries of the Universe, Valencia, Spain, 5 October 2007. Weinheim, Germany: Wiley - VCH. doi: 10.1002/prop.200810560

  • On 5D AdS SUSY and harmonic superspace

    Kuzenko, Sergei and Tartaglino-Mazzucchelli, Gabriele (2007). On 5D AdS SUSY and harmonic superspace. In: Evgeny Ivanov and Sergey Fedoruk, 7th conference in the SQS series. 7th International Workshop on Supersymmetries and Quantum Symmetries (SQS'07), Dubna, Russia, (). 30 July-4 August 2007.

Other Outputs

Grants (Administered at UQ)

PhD and MPhil Supervision

Current Supervision

Possible Research Projects

Note for students: The possible research projects listed on this page may not be comprehensive or up to date. Always feel free to contact the staff for more information, and also with your own research ideas.

  • Supersymmetric field theories on curved backgrounds and applications

    During the last four decades, supersymmetry has been at the forefront of theoretical and mathematical physics of fundamental interactions. It played a crucial role in constructing models aimed at the unification of all forces including quantum gravity, namely string theory. Supersymmetry has also led to several new developments in mathematical physics such as, for example, the study of conformal field theories (that play a fundamental role in string theory and in the description of phase transitions in statistical mechanics) and integrable systems.

    The analysis of supersymmetric theories on curved backgrounds has made possible the exact computation of several important observables. For instance, quantum computations in (super)conformal field theories on a conformally flat background, can be extrapolated from the curved to the flat space limit. For rigid supersymmetric field theories on curved spacetimes localisation techniques (which can reduce an infinite dimensional path integral to a fine dimensional one) allow one to compute quantum observables, such as the partition function, indices, correlators or Wilson loops exactly. Remarkably, localisation has been developed also for calculations in supergravity theories and evaluation of the quantum entropy of black holes. One crucial requirement of localisation is that SUSY has to close off-shell. This leads to the natural use of covariant off-shell (superspace) techniques.

    In quantum field theories, correlation functions may contain singularities at coincident points, the so-called contact terms. They arise as higher-derivative terms in quantum effective actions on some supersymmetric gravity and gauge multiplet backgrounds. For correlation functions of symmetry currents, contact terms can lead to so-called anomalies. These manifest the breakdown of a symmetry due to short distance quantum effects. Anomalies have had a predominant role in the non-perturbative study of quantum field theory and string theory and relate to the Atiyah-Singer index theory in mathematics. In supersymmetric theories, anomalies lie in supermultiplets. Despite their importance, for general supersymmetry and spacetimes, the structure of higher-derivative invariants associated to contact terms and anomalies is not understood. These find important applications in the study supersymmetric quantum field theories, holographic correspondences between gauge and quantum gravity and related topics.

    This project aims at: i) classifying general off-shell supersymmetric curved backgrounds by mean of new mathematical techniques; ii) studying supersymmetric and superconformal field theories on curved manifolds and their applications to holographic correspondences; iii) classify the structure of supersymmetric anomalies in generality.

    This project will support the research of the ARC Future Fellowship of Dr. Gabriele Tartaglino Mazzucchelli “Supersymmetry and Supergravity: New Approaches and Applications.” The student will largely benefit from a vibrant international collaboration on supersymmetry and related topics.

  • Supersymmetry, Supergravity and String inspired models of Cosmology

    During the last four decades, supersymmetry has been at the forefront of research in theoretical and mathematical physics of fundamental interactions. It played a crucial role in constructing models aimed at the unification of all forces including quantum gravity, namely string theory. As such, an active area of research is attempting to reconcile string theory with observed cosmology. Supersymmetry has also led to several new developments in mathematical physics.

    Supergravity arises as the low-energy limit of string theory. Higher-order deformations of gravity give alternative descriptions of dark energy or dark matter and have recently become prominent in inflationary models; see for example the Starobinsky model. It has been recently shown that various higher-derivative supergravities lead to spontaneously broken supersymmetry and a dynamically generated positive cosmological constant. On one hand, this raised a renewed interest in extended supergravity models possessing de-Sitter (expanding universe) solutions in various dimensions. On the other hand, it remains an open question, and a subject of active debate in the string theory community, to understand whether these models are only effective theories or can be embedded in a consistent theory of quantum gravity.

    Another breakthrough of the last two decades in research in string theory has been the discovery of holographic correspondences. These are theoretical tools connecting (D+1)-dimensional theories of (quantum) gravity to D-dimensional Quantum Field Theories (QFTs). The term holography is used in analogy to 2D holograms that can encode information about 3D objects. The best-established holographic conjectures involve supersymmetric theories. Several attempts to describe cosmological models by using holography have also been made.

    This project aims at tackling open questions of string inspired cosmological models. A mathematical characterization of supergravity theories with spontaneously broken supersymmetry will be completed as a step towards understanding whether a positive cosmological constant and de-Sitter solutions can be consistent in string theory or different cosmological scenarios need to be found. Moreover, the project will explore also more exotic, but potentially revolutionary, holographic approaches to quantum cosmology.

  • Solvable supersymmetric field theories, string theory and AdS/CFT

    During the last four decades, supersymmetry has been at the forefront of theoretical and mathematical physics of fundamental interactions. It played a crucial role in constructing models aimed at the unification of all forces including quantum gravity, namely string theory. Supersymmetry has also led to several new developments in mathematical physics such as, for example, the study of conformal field theories (that play a fundamental role in string theory and in the description of phase transitions in statistical mechanics) and integrable systems.

    Supersymmetric quantum field theories in different space-time dimensions have been a fruitful ground of research to construct solvable models that shed new light on the dynamics of strongly coupled systems (such as the confinement of gauge theories), and our mathematical understanding of the physics of fundamental interactions. Some of the most impressive examples appeared in the last two decades in the context of the holographic AdS/CFT correspondences where integrability techniques, originally developed in statistical mechanics, started to play a crucial role in solving string theory models of quantum gravity. Holographic correspondences are theoretical tools connecting (D+1)-dimensional theories of (quantum) gravity to D-dimensional Quantum Field Theories (QFTs). The term holography is used in analogy to 2D holograms that can encode information about 3D objects. The best established holographic conjectures involve supersymmetric theories.

    This project aims at expanding our knowledge of solvable/integrable quantum field and string theories by exploiting the technical advantages existing in supersymmetric theories and their deformations.

    We will investigate deformations of integrable QFTs as a means of constructing new solvable models. Part of the project will look at a particular class of deformations, the so-called TTbar deformations, introduced by Zamolodchikov in 2004 for 2D QFTs. These deformations have received much attention in the high-energy theoretical physics community in the last few of years due to their application to the study of the AdS/CFT correspondence and for their impact in the field of 2D integrable QFTs. Extended also to dimensions higher than two, these deformations are starting to give new perspectives in understanding higher-derivative effective theories that arise in string theory and holographic correspondences where the energy spectrum can be solved exactly. Their extension to the supersymmetric case has been developed by Dr Tartaglino-Mazzucchelli, the Principal Advisor for this project, and his collaborators in a series of papers in 2018-2019. We plan to extend these results and develop a systematic understanding of supersymmetric TTbar deformations and their application to the AdS/CFT correspondence. We will then apply our findings to answer questions in these fields, including the detailed analysis of the spectrum and correlation functions of models on both sides of these correspondences.

    This cutting-edge interdisciplinary research project will connect the very strong Australian mathematical physics community working on integrable systems with the research in theoretical physics that has characterized an international effort to construct a consistent unified theory of all fundamental interactions. This novel research synergy will enhance UQ’ and Australia’s position in mathematical and theoretical physics.

  • Supersymmetry and Supergravity: new approaches and applications

    During the last four decades, supersymmetry has been at the forefront of theoretical and mathematical physics of fundamental interactions. It played a crucial role in constructing models aimed at the unification of all forces including quantum gravity, namely string theory. Supergravity arises as the low-energy limit of string theory and extends Einstein's General Relativity to an unifying framework of particles and forces.

    This project aims at improving our understanding of general supersymmetric theories and supergravity-matter couplings. The outcomes of this project will advance our knowledge of supersymmetry and its mathematical formulation towards the solution of challenging open questions in the study of quantum field theories and gravity. The project’s results will find potential applications to various research branches of high-energy theoretical physics such as quantum field and string theories, matter-coupled gravity, cosmology and holographic dualities.

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ResearcherID: AAB-1767-2019

ORCID: 0000-0002-4989-8216

Scopus ID: 6505479088

Google Scholar ID: bXoAK1kAAAAJ

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