I defended my PhD thesis at the University of Geneva on 20 March 1975. My supervisors were Prof. H. Ruegg (University of Geneva) and Prof. C. Itzykson (Centre de Physique Theorique de Saclay, Paris). Since then I held different positions at the university and at the Spanish Council for Scientific Research (CSIC). In particular before my ICREA position I tenured a Research Professorship at the "Instituto de Estructura de la Materia", Madrid (CSIC). During my scientific career I have got in contact with many researchers and Research Centers worldwide. I have been Invited Professor and/or Guest Scientist at: CERN (Geneva), Fermilab (USA), Université de Pierre et Marie Curie, École Normale Superieure, Université d'Orsay and Ecole Polytechnique (Paris, France), University of Padua (Italy), International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste (Italy and Sao Paulo), University of Ann Arbor (USA), University of California at Santa Cruz (USA), University of Notre Dame (USA), etc.
Research interests
I am a particle theorist. This means that my research concerns the smallest particles that exist (e.g. quarks, leptons, photons, gluons and other gauge bosons) or might exist (e.g. Kaluza-Klein and string modes, etc.) as well as the Early Universe and its behavior (e.g. inflationary epoch, baryon generation, nucleosynthesis, large scale structure, etc.). The relevant theories must be contrasted with experimental data in particle accelerators and astrophysical observations. As for particle accelerators the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), now operating at CERN, is the world’s most powerful machine ever built and will provide an ultimate answer to many of the present open questions of particle physics. In 2012-2013 LHC found a Higgs-like boson weighing around 125 times the proton mass (with a statistical evidence of five standard deviations), which is an essential ingredient in the Standard Model and many beyond the Standard Model theories of electroweak interactions.