Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos | Hugo Alberto Ayala Solares

Hugo Alberto Ayala Solares - Assistant Research Professor - Faculty

Office: 206A Osmond Laboratory

Address: 0104 Davey Laboratory University Park, PA 16802 US

Email: hgayala@psu.edu

Phone: +1 814 863 7533

I’m an astrophysicist working at the Pennsylvania State University.

I’m involved in several projects related to high-energy astrophysics. I study high-energy gamma rays with the HAWC Observatory, located in Mexico; mostly involved with the search of gamma-ray emission from large structures. Another project involves the observation of high-energy neutrinos using the IceCube Observatory located in the South Pole.

The third project is a multimessenger framework called AMON, which looks for coincidences of events obtained by different detectors or observatories. This is a pioneer project in the search of multimessenger sources.

I earned my PhD at Michigan Technological University. My thesis was about observations of high-energy gamma-rays from the Northern Fermi Bubble Region with the HAWC Observatory, advised by Dr. Petra Huentemeyer.

Click here to view my website

The IGC wordmark was created by Monica Rincon Ramirez, while she was a graduate student at the Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos (IGC). Monica enjoys drawing new connections between fundamental theory and observations. Her graduate work includes specialized topics in general relativity, loop quantum gravity, and quantum fields in cosmological backgrounds. In particular, her thesis work focused on finding effective quantum corrections to gravitational phenomena from spinfoams, and applications to cosmology. She received her PhD in 2024.

The wordmark symbolizes the scope and variety of research at the IGC. The base of the image represents quantum gravity, evoking the quantum geometrical picture from spinfoams and loop quantum gravity. These are among the approaches to fundamental questions studied at the Center for Fundamental Theory. The middle of the image represents the Center for Theoretical and Observational Cosmology by galaxies embedded in a smooth surface, characteristic of spacetime in general relativity and the much larger physical scales studied in cosmology. Finally, at the top, the surface curves to an extreme, representing a supermassive black hole accompanied by an energetic jet. These elements depict an active galactic nucleus, inspired by Centaurus A. Just to the right, a pair of black holes approaches merger. This top portion of the wordmark represents the Center for Multimessenger Astrophysics, which specializes in the study of high-energy phenomena in the universe.