The project addresses the two greatest unresolved problems in quantum field theory and gravity.
The question of UV-completion beyond the Planck length and the mysteries of black holes. It is grounded on a recent program of research where we have put forward a fundamentally different unifying approach to both of these problems.
This approach is based on modeling Black Holes as self-sustained Bose-Einstein condensates of long wave-length gravitons with the very peculiar property of being stuck at the critical point of a quantum phase transition. This quantum model of black holes is the outcome of understanding the UV-completion of gravity not taking place at the expense of some new dynamics of very short-wavelength degrees of freedom but rather at the expense of long-wavelength collective excitations of the above graviton Bose-Einstein condensate.
Apart of being of undoubted theoretical value for our understanding of black hole physics and its role in the UV-completion, the new framework has important implications for astrophysics, for LHC searches of micro black holes and for studies of alternative UV-completions of the Standard Model, as well as for making connections between gravity and condensed matter physics, both theoretical and experimental. Our project is fully devoted to the exploration of this new framework with special emphasis in the development of concrete experimental predictions.

ERC-2013-ADG