Joan Bachs-Esteban joined the COSTAR group as a PhD student for the next four years.
Joan studied at the University of Barcelona, where he graduated in physics and in mathematics and afterwards specialised in cosmology and astrophysics. Part of his training was received at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, both as an Erasmus student and as a research intern. Joan carried out his master thesis under the supervision of Prof. J. Solà, on the thermodynamic implications of running vacuum models. These models are a class of dynamical vacuum models based on a renormalisation group equation that establishes the time-dependence of the vacuum energy density as a function of the Hubble parameter. In particular, he analysed the behaviour of the entropy of the universe that arises from considering an extended model that presumes two different inflation scales.
At CENTRA, Joan will work on scalar-tensor theories of gravity under the supervision of Dr. Javier Rubio and Prof. Ilídio Lopes. He will study the role of scalar interactions on the formation and evolution of compact structures in the early and late Universe, focusing on models involving universal and non-universal couplings to the visible and dark matter sectors.If you want to reach Joan, you can find him in Office 5-1.5 or contact him by email.