Gonzalo Cao Labora
Nationality: EU (Spanish)
EPFL SB MATH AMCV
MA B2 455 (Bâtiment MA)
Station 8
1015 Lausanne
+41 21 693 50 58
Office:
MA B2 455
EPFL › SB › MATH › AMCV
Website: https://amcv.epfl.ch/
+41 21 693 50 58
Office:
MA B2 455
EPFL › SB › SB-SMA › SMA-ENS
Website: https://sma.epfl.ch/
Expertise
- I recently received the Vicent Caselles 2026 prize for my PhD thesis.
- I received the 2025 R. E. Moore jointly with T. Buckmaster and J. Gomez-Serrano for our joint paper "Smooth self-similar imploding profiles to 3D compressible Euler" published in Forum of Mathematics, Pi (2025).
My work extends through different areas of Analysis:
- My work started in self-similar singularity formation, both in Analysis of Fluids and in the context of Dispersive PDE. We proved the first singularity formation scenario for monatomic compressible Euler as well as the first non-radial and periodic blowup both for compressible Euler and supercritical defocusing NLS.
- In the case of Analysis of Fluids, I have also worked on stability problems, establishing the instability of the 2D Taylor-Green vortex (or cellular flow).
- I have also worked in Overdetermined PDE, particularly disproving Schiffer's conjecture on the plane, and answering a similar question on the half-sphere.
- I consider myself an analyst, and have a collaboration in geometry that benefits from this interdisciplinary nature. In particular, we proved a long-standing question of Berger regarding the existence of non-trivial Einstein metrics on complex projective spaces of dimensions 4 and 6.
- In the same interdisciplinary fashion, I also have collaborative work with experts in Machine Learning searching for self-similar blowup candidates in Analysis of Fluids.
See my papers below for specifics about those works and a list of collaborators.
I did my PhD at MIT under the supervision of Gigliola Staffilani. Before joining EPFL I was a Courant Instructor at New York University.
My working languages are English, Spanish, Galician and Catalan
Awards
the Ramon E. Moore prize for the work “Smooth Imploding Solutions for 3D Compressible Fluids” (with T. Buckmaster and J. Gomez-Serrano).
editorial board of the journal Reliable Computing
2025
Vicent Caselles Prize to Mathematics Research
Royal Spanish Mathematical Society - BBVA Foundation
2026
Selected publications
Inhomogeneous Einstein metrics on complex projective spaces
Gonzalo Cao-Labora, Alberto Rodriguez-Vazquez
Published in arXiv preprint in 2026
Counterexamples to Schiffer Conjecture
Gonzalo Cao-Labora, Jaume de Dios Pont
Published in arXiv preprint in 2026
Instability of two-dimensional Taylor-Green vortices
Gonzalo Cao Labora, Maria Colombo, Michele Dolce, Paolo Ventura
Published in arXiv in 2026
A contractible Schiffer counterexample on the half-sphere
Cao-Labora, Fernández
Published in arXiv preprint in 2025
Discovery of Unstable Singularities
Wang et al.
Published in arxiv preprint in 2025
Non-implosion for compressible Euler and Navier-Stokes in T^3 and R^3
Cao-Labora, Gomez-Serrano, Shi, Staffilani
Published in Cambridge Journal of Mathematics in 2025
Smooth imploding solutions for 3D compressible fluids
Buckmaster, Cao-Labora, Gomez-Serrano
Published in Forum of Mathematics Pi in 2025
Teaching & PhD
Courses
Introduction to partial differential equations
MATH-305
This is an introductory course on Elliptic Partial Differential Equations. The course will cover the theory of both classical and generalized (weak) solutions of elliptic PDEs.