Andrei Constantin

I am a Stephen Hawking Fellow in Theoretical Physics. I studied Physics in Bremen and received an MSc in Theoretical and Mathematical Physics from LMU Munich. I did my doctoral studies in Oxford, followed by two postdocs, one in Oxford and one in Uppsala. My research lies at the interface of string theory, algebraic geometry, and machine learning and focuses on developing mathematical and computational tools to investigate string theory and its implications for particle physics, cosmology and quantum gravity. One of the central drives of my research is to construct models of particle physics from string theory. My current work is related to the study of vector bundle cohomology and its applications to string model building. Computing cohomology is a crucial and time consuming step in the derivation of the spectrum of low-energy particles resulting from string compactifications. I have shown that in many cases of interest in string theory topological formulae for cohomology exist. These mathematical shortcuts can reduce the time needed for deciding the physical viability of a string compactification from several months of computer algebra to a split of a second. I am also working on adapting, refining and applying machine learning techniques to problems in string theory and mathematics. I am using these to generate new conjectures about Calabi-Yau manifolds, vector bundles and cohomology, as well as to probe the landscape of string theory solutions relevant for particle physics.