Violetta Sagun

I am a Senior Researcher at the Southampton Theory, Astrophysics and Gravity (STAG) Research Centre, University of Southampton, where I work at the intersection of nuclear physics, compact stars, dark matter, and gravitational-wave astronomy. My research focuses on multi-messenger probes of fundamental physics, with particular emphasis on the impact of dark matter on neutron stars and their mergers, the equation of state of strongly interacting matter, and the search for deconfined quark matter in neutron-star interiors.

I am Chair of the Cosmic Explorer Dark Matter Group, where I coordinate the group’s activities and lead the development of its Science Traceability Matrix. I am also an active member of the Einstein Telescope, SKA and NewAthena collaborations working on the use of next-generation gravitational-wave, radio and X-ray observatories to probe dense matter and dark matter.

Another direction of my research focuses on strongly interacting matter across a wide range of temperatures and densities, connecting the physics of heavy-ion collisions with that of neutron stars and using multi-messenger observations to probe the QCD phase diagram and the properties of dense matter.