My dissertation research addresses several aspects of a particular
approach to the Quantum Gravity problem which is generally described as
"Planck-scale physics". In fact its starting point is the possible failure
of standard physics to explain phenomena as they approach the Planck scale.
Planck scale physics models are usually certain deformations of standard
theories which can have experimentally observable consequences and can be
related to the low energy limit of of some top-to-bottom Quantum Gravity
theories. My research to date has involved the study of the aspects of
"deformed" field theories on a certain type of "quantum" space-times and
their possible phenomenological predictions. A series of interesting
results emerged when I was working on the possible interplay between
these models and other Quantum Gravity scenarios, in particular in the
field of black hole thermodynamics. The new methods I developed in this
context turned out to have possible consequences for other frameworks like
Planck-scale modifications of entropy bounds and the applications of the
Holographic Principle to cosmological models of the early Universe. My
research also attempts to provide a series of experimental frameworks in
which the models under study can be tested and falsified. These might set
phenomenological constraints in a field that until recently was open to the
wildest theoretical speculations.