Nicolas Esser
PhD student in Astrophysics

Click here to view my full CV (last updated 26/09/25).

Below is a detailed list of my scientific publications, talks, attended conferences, and additional training that are not included in my CV.

Single-Author Publications

2025 Primordial black hole-star binaries via dynamical friction
Nicolas Esser
Physical Review D

First-Author Publications

2025 Constraints on asteroid-mass primordial black holes in dwarf galaxies using Hubble Space Telescope photometry
Nicolas Esser, Carrie Filion, Sven De Rijcke, Nitya Kallivayalil, Hannah Richstein, Peter Tinyakov, Rosemary F.G. Wyse
Astronomy & Astrophysics
2024 The impact of primordial black holes on the stellar mass function of ultra-faint dwarf galaxies
Nicolas Esser, Sven De Rijcke, Peter Tinyakov
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
2023 Constraints on primordial black holes from observation of stars in dwarf galaxies
Nicolas Esser and Peter Tinyakov
Physical Review D

Contributed & invited Talks at Conferences

September 2025 Invited talk at News from the Dark 2025 , Université Paul Valéry, Montpellier, France
September 2025 Invisibles 2025 , CERN, Switzerland
August 2025 Black Holes & Cosmology , University of Iceland, Reykjavik
June 2025 European Astronomical Society Annual Meeting 2025 , University College Cork, Ireland
May 2025 New Horizons in Primordial Black Hole Physics 2025 , Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
May 2025 5th EuCAPT Annual Symposium , CERN, Switzerland (online)
June 2024 New Horizons in Primordial Black Hole Physics 2024 , National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh
December 2023 Future Perspectives on Primordial Black Holes , Sapienza Università di Roma, Italy
November 2022 Dark Matters 2022 , Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
April 2022 Mini-Workshop on Primordial Black Holes , Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium

Invited Seminars

December 2025 GRAPPA, Amsterdam, Netherlands
November 2025 Yale Department of Astronomy, New Haven, USA
August 2025 Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany
April 2023 UGent Astronomy group, Ghent University, Belgium

Other Scientific Presentations

March 2025 First UNDARK school on Astrophysical and Cosmological probes of BSM , Benasque Science Center, Spain
March 2025 BLU-ULB annual meeting , Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
November 2023 BLU-PANDA PhD day , Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
September 2022 AScBr presentation , Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
2022-2026 Theoretical Physics Group's weekly journal clubs , Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium

Conferences

I had the opportunity to talk at most major conferences I attended to, so please refer to the 'Contributed Talks' section above. I was also member of the organising committee of the New Horizons in Primordial Black Holes 2025 and of the News from the Dark 2023 conferences in Brussels.

Scientific Schools

March 2025 First UNDARK school on Astrophysical and Cosmological probes of BSM , Benasque Science Center, Spain
September 2023 First EuCAPT School: Cosmology , Universitat de València, Spain
March 2023 GGI school on Theoretical Aspects of Astroparticle Physics, Cosmology and Gravitation 2023 , Galileo Galilei Institute, Firenze, Italy

Additional Training and Soft Skills

February-May 2024 SpeechCoaching for 'My thesis in 180 seconds' (3 days) , by Sophie Dussart, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
October 2023 Lectures: introduction to machine learning methods (8 hours) , by Bryan Zaldivar (IFIC), Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
May 2023 Spring school: how to communicate your research (2 days) , Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
October 2022 Lectures: Bayesian statistics for Cosmology with Cobaya (7 hours) , by Jesús Torrado, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
I also attended a variety of individual talks and one-day seminars, including Solvay Seminars, BEL Colloquium, Be.H Solstice Meetings, PhysTH weekly seminars and journal clubs, and many other seminars across various institutes.