My physics interests lie broadly in the astroparticle world, under the giant umbrella of dark matter. In particular, I am interested in primordial black holes, macroscopic dark matter, and axions, but my attention is easily swayed by the craziest idea in the room. Currently I am a postdoc at Queen’s University (Canada) in the astroparticle group with Joseph Bramante and Aaron Vincent. I am also an Associate Postdoctoral Researcher at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. More details can be found on InspireHEP.
The gravity of particle physics: dark matter, black holes, and axions (PhD Thesis), University of Sydney (2022). Advisors: Archil Kobakhidze and Celine Boehm
Best PhD Thesis, 2022 School of Physics Research Awards
Papers
When Tiny Halos Stir Spacetime: Gravitational Waves from Fifth-Force Mergers
X. Wang, Y. Lu, ZSCP, A. Kusenko, M. Sasaki (2025)
Neutrino masses, matter-antimatter asymmetry, dark matter, and supermassive black hole formation explained with Majorons
Y. Lu, ZSCP, A. Kusenko, T. Yanagida (2025)
A dark matter hail: Detecting macroscopic dark matter with asteroids, planetary rings, and craters
ZSCP, Phys.Rev.D. 112 (2025) 4, 043028
Editors’ Suggestion
Black Holes from Fermi Ball Collapse
Y. Lu, ZSCP, S. Profumo, A. Kusenko, Phys.Rev.D. 111 (2025) 4, 043005
Direct collapse supermassive black holes from relic particle decay
Y. Lu, ZSCP, A. Kusenko, Phys.Rev.Lett. 133 (2024) 9, 091001
Feeding plankton to whales: high-redshift supermassive black holes from tiny black hole explosions
Y. Lu, ZSCP, A. Kusenko, Phys.Rev.D 109 (2024) 12, 123016
Explaining the GeV excess with exploding black holes
ZSCP and A. Kusenko, Phys.Lett.B 845 (2023), 138175
Constraints on late-forming exploding black holes
ZSCP and A. Kusenko, Phys.Rev.D 108 (2023), 023012
Effects of Hawking evaporation on PBH distributions
M. Mosbech, ZSCP, SciPost Phys. 13 (2022), 100
Apparent horizons of the Thakurta spacetime and the description of cosmological black holes
A. Kobakhidze, ZSCP, Eur.Phys.J.C 82 (2022) 4, 347
Cosmology of the companion-axion model: dark matter, gravitational waves, and primordial black holes
Z. Chen, A. Kobakhidze, C. A. J. O’hare, ZSCP, G. Pierobon, SciPost Phys. 18, (2025), 175
Phenomenology of the companion-axion model: photon couplings
Z. Chen, A. Kobakhidze, C. A. J. O’hare, ZSCP, G. Pierobon, Eur.Phys.J.C 82 (2022) 10, 940
Navigating the asteroid field: New evaporation constraints for primordial black holes as dark matter
ZSCP (2021)
Eliminating the LIGO bounds on primordial black hole dark matter
C. Boehm, A. Kobakhidze, C. A. J. O’hare, ZSCP, M. Sakellariadou, JCAP 03 (2021) 078
Probing Quadratic Gravity with Binary Inspirals
Y. Kim, A. Kobakhidze, ZSCP, Eur.Phys.J.C 81 (2021) 4, 362
Selected presentations
Balls, Nuggets, and Black Holes: An Overview of Macroscopic Dark Matter
McDonald Institute Seminar, Nov. 2025
The ‘Companion Axion’: Solving the Strong-Gravity-CP Problem
(20 min), Dark Sectors of AstroParticle Physics, Dec. 2021
Probing the Universe at the Intersection of Gravity and Particle Physics
(25 min) Sydney CPPC Seminar Series, Oct. 2021
The Strong CP Problem
(50 min) Dark matter lecture series, ARC Centre of Excellence for Dark Matter Particle Physics, Aug. 2021
Cosmological PBHs as Dark Matter
(50 min) Sydney CPPC Seminar Series, June 2021
Media
The Science Show, ABC Radio National, Aug. 2025. Physical Evidence for dark matter remains elusive
The Science Show, ABC Radio National, Feb. 2025. New theory on the origin of black holes
New Scientist, Physics World, Earth.com, The University Network, Meteored, Universe Today, Innovation News Network, Engineer’s Planet, Knowridge, Supermassive black holes from dark matter decay (many)
Astrobites, MACHOs Find a New Weight Class to Compete In
Recordings and videos
Late-forming primordial black holes
(50 min) Sydney CPPC Seminar Series, Apr. 2023
Probing the Universe at the Intersection of Gravity and Particle Physics
(25 min) Sydney CPPC Seminar Series, Oct. 2021
Cosmological PBHs as Dark Matter
(50 min) Sydney CPPC Seminar Series, June 2021
Dark Chatter #1: Primordial Black Holes with Markus Mosbech
Dark Chatter #3: Massive Neutrinos in N-body Simulations with Joe Chen
Dark Chatter #6: Muon Anomalies with Innes Bigaran
Dark Chatter #9: Simulating axion-like particles with Giovanni Pierobon
Et cetera
I’m just doing physics, exhibit, Open Sauce 2024. I worked on a real paper live with an audience over the course of the two-day science fair. The paper ended up becoming Lu et al 2025.
Virtual School of Physics Full-scale recreation of the School of Physics at the University of Sydney. Accurate exterior and interior constructed in Gather-Town, an interactive virtual conferencing video game.
Indigenous Australian (Boorong) Constellations Poster
Cosmological Black Holes (poster)
Black Holes Inside and Out, Sep. 2021
Second Centre Annual Workshop, ARC Centre of Excellence for Dark Matter Particle Physics, Dec. 2021
