Birthplace and birthdate: Roma, 29-04-1955

Present Position: Professor of Theoretical Physics

Academic Degrees:

•  Laurea in Ingegneria Elettronica (U. Roma, 29-07-1978), 110/110 e lode

Thesis: Propagazione di luce parzialmente coerente in fibre ottiche
Advisors: Prof. B. Crosignani e Prof. Paolo Di Porto
Carosio Prize, 1979

•  Master of Science in Electrical Engineering (Caltech, USA, 06-1979)

•  Doctor of Philosophy in Theoretical Physics (Caltech, USA, 06-1983)

Thesis: Topics in supersymmetry theory
Advisor: Prof. J.H. Schwarz

Academic career:

• Research Fellow (Caltech) 1983-84
• Miller Research Fellow (U.C.Berkeley) 1984-86
• Junior Faculty (U. Roma “Tor Vergata”) 1985-93
• Associate Professor (U. Roma “Tor Vergata”) 1994-99
• Professor (U. Roma “Tor Vergata” ) 2000-05
• Professor (Scuola Normale Superiore) 2005-

Awards and Honors:

• Carosio Prize (U. Roma “La Sapienza”, 1979)
• Miller Fellowship (U. of California, Berkeley, 1984)
• SIGRAV Prize 1994 (with M. Bianchi)
• Andrejewski Lecturer (Humboldt Universitat, Berlin, 1999)

Research activity:

• Field Theory
• Quantum Gravity
• String theory
• 2D Conformal Field Theory
• Supersymmetry Breaking
• Higher-Spin Gauge Fields

Books edited:

• “String Theory”, eds. C. Procesi and A. Sagnotti (Academic Press, 1988)
• “String Theory, Quantum Gravity and the Unification of the Fundamental Interactions”, eds. M. Bianchi, F. Fucito, V. Marinari and A. Sagnotti (World Scientific, 1992)

Teaching:

• Quantum and Statistical Mechanics
• Classical Field Theory
• Quantum Field Theory
• Mathematical Methods
• String Theory

Encyclopedia articles:

• “Teoria delle Stringhe”, Enciclopedia della Scienza, vol. IX
  (Ist. Enc.Treccani, 2003)

• “Supersimmetria”, Enciclopedia della Scienza e della Tecnica
  (Ist. Enc. Treccani, 2006, with F. Fucito)

Some visits to other Institutions:

• U. Varsavia (1988, 2 weeks)
• DESY (1989, 1 week)
• IHES (1990, 3 months)
• UCLA, Caltech (1992, 1 month)
• Ecole Polytechnique (1992, 1 month)
• Ecole Polytechnique (1994, 2 months)
• Ecole Polytechnique (1995, 3 months)
• CERN (1996, 2 months)
• IHES (1996, 1 months)
• Institute for Advanced Study, MIT, Harvard (1996, 3 weeks)
• Ecole Polytechnique (1999, 4 months)
• Humboldt Universitat (1999, 3 weeks)
• Ecole Normale Sup\'erieure (2000, 3 months)
• LPT-Orsay (2001, 3 months)
• U. Cambridge, U. Oxford (2001, 2 weeks)
• U. Uppsala (2004, 2 weeks)
• CERN (2004, 3 weeks)
• Ecole Polytechnique (2005, 3 months)
• Scientific Associate, CERN ( 2005)

Research Management:

• National Committee, Gr. IV INFN (1988-1996)
• Coordinator of the Italian nodes in three successive EU contracts
• Coordinator of two successive INTAS contracts
• Coordinator of the “Tor Vergata” node in two successive PRIN contracts
• Coordinator of the “Tor Vergata” node for the contract INFN-TS11
• National Coordinator of the PRIN project 2008-024045

Referee for:

• Phys. Rev. and Phys. Rev. Lett.
• Phys. Lett. B and Nucl. Phys. B
• Phys. Reports
• Class. Q. Gravity
• JHEP

Member of International Committes in:

France, Germany, UK, Israel, Netherlands , Russia, Spain, Sweden, USA

Main contributions:

- The analysis of the 2-loop divergences in Einstein's theory of General Relativity:

• M.H. Goroff and A. Sagnotti, “Quantum Gravity At Two Loops”, Phys. Lett. B160 (1985) 81,
• M.H. Goroff and A. Sagnotti, “The Ultraviolet Behavior Of Einstein Gravity”, Nucl. Phys. B266 (1986) 709.

- The discovery of the relation between type-I and type-IIB superstrings (now regarded as the prototype “orientifold” construction):

• A. Sagnotti, “Open Strings And Their Symmetry Groups”, in Cargese '87, “Non-perturbative Quantum Field Theory”, eds. G. 't Hooft et al., p. 521, riprodotto in arXiv:hep-th/0208020.

- The elucidation of the key properties of “orientifolds” (strings with different boundary conditions, spectra including different numbers of (anti)self-dual two-tensors, discrete deformations, generalized Green-Schwarz mechanism):

• G. Pradisi and A. Sagnotti, “ Open String Orbifolds”, Phys. Lett. B216 (1989) 59;
• M. Bianchi and A. Sagnotti, “On The Systematics Of Open String Theories”, Phys. Lett. B247 (1990) 517,
• M. Bianchi and A. Sagnotti, “Twist Symmetry And Open String Wilson Lines”, Nucl. Phys. B361 (1991) 519;
• M. Bianchi, G. Pradisi and A. Sagnotti, “Toroidal compactification and symmetry breaking in open string theories” , Nucl. Phys. B376 (1992) 365;
• A. Sagnotti, “A Note on the Green-Schwarz mechanism in open string theories”, Phys. Lett. B294 (1992) 196 [arXiv:hep-th/9210127].

- The elucidation of the key properties of Conformal Field Theory on non-orientable surfaces:

• D. Fioravanti, G. Pradisi and A. Sagnotti, “Sewing constraints and nonorientable open strings” , Phys. Lett. B321 (1994) 349 [arXiv:hep-th/9311183];
• G. Pradisi, A. Sagnotti and Y.S. Stanev, “Planar duality in SU(2) WZW models” , Phys. Lett. B354 (1995) 279 [arXiv:hep-th/9503207];
• G. Pradisi, A. Sagnotti and Y.S. Stanev, “The Open descendants of nondiagonal SU(2) WZW Models”, Phys. Lett. B356 (1995) 230 [arXiv:hep-th/9506014];
• G. Pradisi, A. Sagnotti and Y.S. Stanev, “Completeness Conditions for Boundary Operators in 2D Conformal Field Theory”, Phys. Lett. B381 (1996) 97 [arXiv:hep-th/9603097].

- The first example of a chiral four-dimensional open-string spectrum with three generations of matter:

• C. Angelantonj, M. Bianchi, G. Pradisi, A. Sagnotti and Y.S. Stanev , “Chiral asymmetry in four-dimensional open- string vacua” , Phys. Lett. B385 (1996) 96 [arXiv:hep-th/9606169]

- The discovery of a 10D superstring theory (commonly referred to as the 0B' string), including both open and closed strings, non supersymmetric but free of tachyons:

• A. Sagnotti, “Some properties of open string theories”, arXiv:hep-th/9509080, presented at SUSY '95 (Palaiseau, giugno 1995);
• A. Sagnotti, “Surprises in open-string perturbation theory”, Nucl. Phys. Proc. Suppl. 56B (1997) 332 [arXiv:hep-th/9702093].

- The identification of two novel phenomena related to the breaking of supersymmetry that can manifest themselves in the presence of open strings, “brane supersymmetry” and “brane supersymmetry breaking”, and a study of supersymmetric magnetic deformations of open-string spectra (equivalent to the introduction of suitably rotated branes, of interest for recent attempts to extend the Standard Model of Particle Physics):

• I. Antoniadis, E. Dudas and A. Sagnotti, “Supersymmetry breaking, open strings and M-theory” , Nucl. Phys. B544 (1999) 469 [arXiv:hep-th/9807011;
• I. Antoniadis, E. Dudas and A. Sagnotti, “Brane supersymmetry breaking”, Phys. Lett. B464 (1999) 38 [arXiv:hep-th/9908023];
• C. Angelantonj, I. Antoniadis, E. Dudas and A. Sagnotti , “Type-I strings on magnetised orbifolds and brane transmutation” , Phys. Lett. B489 (2000) 223 [arXiv:hep-th/0007090].

- A review article for Physics Reports on orientifold constructions:

• C. Angelantonj and A. Sagnotti, “Open strings”, Phys. Rept. 371 (2002) 1 [Erratum-ibid. 376 (2003) 339] [arXiv:hep-th/0204089].

- The geometrical description, along the lines on the spin-1 (Maxwell) and spin-2 (Einstein) cases, for free higher-spin gauge fields:

• D. Francia and A. Sagnotti , “Free geometric equations for higher spins”, Phys. Lett. B543 (2002) 303 [arXiv:hep-th/0207002];
• D. Francia and A. Sagnotti, “On the geometry of higher-spin gauge fields”, Class.Quant. Grav. 20 (2003) S473 [arXiv:hep-th/0212185];
• D. Francia and A. Sagnotti, “Minimal local Lagrangians for higher-spin geometry”, Phys. Lett. B624 (2005) 93 [arXiv:hep-th/0507144];
• Sagnotti and M. Tsulaia, “On higher spins and the tensionless limit of string theory” , Nucl. Phys. B682 (2004) 83 [arXiv:hep-th/0311257]
• D. Francia, J. Mourad and A. Sagnotti, "Current exchanges and unconstrained higher spins", Nucl.\ Phys.B773 (2007) 203 [arXiv:hep-th/0701163];
• D. Francia, J. Mourad and A. Sagnotti,"(A)dS exchanges and partially-massless higher spins", Nucl. Phys. B804 (2008) 383 [arXiv:0803.3832 [hep-th]];
• A. Campoleoni, D. Francia, J. Mourad and A. Sagnotti,"Unconstrained Higher Spins of Mixed Symmetry. I. Bose Fields", Nucl. Phys. B815 (2009) 289 [arXiv:0810.4350 [hep-th]].
• A. Campoleoni, D. Francia, J. Mourad and A. Sagnotti, "Unconstrained Higher Spins of Mixed Symmetry. II. Fermi Fields",' Nucl. Phys. B828 (2010) 405 [arXiv:0904.4447 [hep-th]].