About
I am a theoretical physicist exploring the boundaries of the Standard Model of particle physics and the Lambda cold dark matter model of cosmology. My approach integrates a wide spectrum of methods, ranging from traditional model building in Quantum Field Theory to Quantum Information Theory and intepretable Artificial Intelligence.
Interests
- Beyond the Standard Model: flavour, naturaleness, dark matter.
- Beyond the ΛCDM: primordial black holes, modified galaxy formation.
- Phenomenology at/with: future colliders (Electron-Ion Collider, Muon Colliders), nuclear facilities (ITER), cosmological probes (James-Webb Telescope, gravitational wave experiments).
- Interpretable Artificial Intelligence for (Nuclear) Physics applications.
Education
PhD in Theoretical Physics, 2020
University of Zürich
MSc in Physics, 2016
ETH Zürich
BSc in Physics, 2014
Technical University of Dortmund
Experience
PostDoc
MIT, IAIFI
PostDoc
SISSA
Recent Publications
For a complete list of publications see my Inspire page.
*
We derive a new metastability bound for the Higgs mass parameter. When the bound for the positive mass parameter is significantly more restrictive than or comparable to its counterpart for the negative, it may offer an explanation for the spontaneous symmetry breaking itself.
Mechanistic Interpretability promises a path toward fully understanding how neural networks make their predictions. We argue that neural networks can learn low-dimensional representations of their training data that are surprisingly faithful to human-derived domain knowledge. As a case study, we extract nuclear physics concepts by studying models trained to reproduce nuclear data.
We introduce Nuclear Co-Learned Representations (NuCLR), a deep learning model that predicts various nuclear observables, including binding and decay energies, and nuclear charge radii. The model is trained using a multi-task approach with shared representations and obtains state-of-the-art performance, achieving levels of precision that are crucial for understanding fundamental phenomena in nuclear (astro)physics.
Recent observations have granted to us two unique insights into the early Universe: the presence of a low-frequency stochastic gravitational wave background detected by the NANOGrav and Pulsar Timing Array (PTA) experiments and the emergence of unusually massive galaxy candidates at high redshifts reported by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). We consider the possibility that both observations have a common origin, namely supermassive primordial black holes.
The emission of collinear radiation off an elementary lepton can be factorised from the hard scattering process by introducing Parton Distribution Functions of a Lepton (LePDF), which, contrary to protons, can be derived from first principles. In case of multi-TeV lepton colliders, such as the muon colliders currently being proposed, the complete structure of Standard Model interactions must be taken into account.
News
I participated as a tutor in UC Berkeley’s REYES program and I had to the honor to work with talented students from around the world. I also had the talk about the interplay between physics and AI.
Contact
If you have any questions, send me a message at:
- trifinos@mit.edu
- 77 Massachusetts Ave, 26-648, Cambridge, MA 02139-4307