Title:
Assistant Professor
Division:
The Theoretical and Mathematical Physics, Astronomy and Astrophysics Division
Office:
Building C, 2nd Floor
Address:
Department of Physics, University of Patras, Greece
Phone:
+30 2610 996906, +30 2610 996081
Email:
papaniko@upatras.gr
Hours Availability:
If you want to contact me please send an email.
Courses

Short Bio

      Academic Positions

  • 2026 – :  Assistant Professor, Department of Physics, University of Patras, Greece
  • 2023 – 2026: Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Gravity and Cosmology (CosmoGrav) Group, Scuola Superiore Meridionale, Naples, Italy
  • 2021 – 2023: Postdoctoral Resercher, National Observatory of Athens, Greece

      Administrative Positions

  • September 2025 – September 2027: Secretary (elected) of the Hellenic Society of Relativity, Gravity and Cosmology

      Education

  • 2018 – 2021: PhD in Theoretical Cosmology, Université Paris-Cité, France, PhD Thesis Title: “Studying aspects of the early Universe with primordial black holes”, PhD advisor: Prof. Vincent Vennin
  • 2017 – 2018: Master 2 in Nuclei, Particles, Astroparticles and Cosmology, Sorbonne Université, France, GPA: “Très Bien – 17/20” – Summa Cum Laude
  • 2016 – 2017: Master 1 in Fundamental Physics, École Normale Supérieure de Paris, France, GPA: “Bien – 14.5/20”
  • 2012 – 2016: BSc in Physics, Department of Physics, University of Patras, Greece, GPA: “Excellent – 9.96/10” – Summa Cum Laude

      Foreign Languages

  • Greek: Native Speaker
  • English : Level C2, Michigan ECPE, IELTS Academic (Grade: 8.0/9)
  • French: Level C2, DALF C2 (Grade: 92/100)
  • Italian: Level Β2, Greek State Certificate of the Italian Language (Grade: 88/100)
  • Romanian: Level A2

      International Collaborations

  • LISA Cosmology Working Group (Core Member)
  • COST Action CA21136 “CosmoVerse”
  • COST Action CA18108 “Quantum Gravity Phenomenology in the multi-messenger approach”
  • COST Action CA23130 “Bridging high and low energies in search of quantum gravity (BridgeQG)”

      Reviewing Activity

  • Nature Astronomy (Invited Reviewer)
  • Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
  • Physics Letters B
  • Physics of the Dark Universe
  • Chinese Physics Letters
  • Classical and Quantum Gravity
  • Universe
  • International Journal of Geometric Methods in Modern Physics

      Research Funding

  • October 2023 – September 2026: Postdoctoral Research Fellowship from the Scuola Superiore Meridionale di Napoli, Italy (International selection among ∼200 candidates). 
  • October 2021 – September 2023: Postdoctoral Research Grant from the Foundation for Education and European Culture in Greece for post-doctoral research in the National Observatory of Athens. 
  • October 2018 – September 2021: “Jean-Pierre Aguilar” Research Fellowship from the CFM Research Foundation for doctoral research at the Université Paris Cité.

      Excellence Scholarships

  • Excellence Scholarships for BSc studies in Physics at the University of Patras attributed by the “Andreas Mentzelopoulos”  Foundation and the National Scholarship Foundation of Greece.
  • Excellence Scholarships for Master studies in Paris attributed by the Lilian Voudouri and Leventis Foundations, the Foundation for Education and Europe Culture in Greece, the Greek Ministry of Education, the ICFP-LabEx of École Normale Supérieure (ENS) and the Lagrange Institute of Paris.
  • PhD Scholarship form the Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation.

      International Distinctions/Awards

  • “Honorable Mention” in the 2024 and 2025 Gravity Essay Competition of the Gravity Research Foundation in USA.
  • Inclusion in the Stanford/Elsevier’s Top 2% Scientists Ranking for the Years 2023 and 2024 (Top 1%).
  • International Excellence Award/Fellowship from Alexander S Onassis Public Benefit Foundation for participation in the 66th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting.

      Membership to Scientific Associations

  • Hellenic Society of Relativity, Gravity and Cosmology
  • Hellenic Astronomical Society
  • Union of Greek Physicists
  • Hellenic Mathematical Society

      Research Interests

  • Early Universe Cosmology (Inflation, Reheating, Cosmic Microwave Background)
  • Gravitational Waves (Theory)
  • Primordial Black Holes
  • Cosmological Implications of High Energy Physics
  • Theories of Modified Gravity/ Quantum Graviy
  • Cosmic Magnetic Fields
  • Dark Matter/Dark Energy
  • Philosophy of Physics and Cosmology
Research Activities

     h-index: 21 (>2000 αναφορές) σύμφωνα με τη βάση δεδομένων HEP Inspire.

  1. J. Martin, T. Papanikolaou and V. Vennin, Primordial black holes from the preheating instability in single-field inflation, JCAP 01 (2020) 024, arXiv:1907.04236
  1. J. Martin, T. Papanikolaou, L. Pinol and V. Vennin, Metric preheating and radiative decay in single-field inflation, JCAP 05 (2020) 003, arXiv:2002.01820
  1. T. Papanikolaou, V. Vennin and D.Langlois, Gravitational waves from a universe filled with primordial black holes, JCAP 03 (2021) 053, arXiv:2010.11573
  1. I. Musco and T. Papanikolaou, Primordial black hole formation for an anistropic perfect fluid: initial conditions and estimation of the threshold, Phys. Rev. D 106 (2022) 08, arXiv:2110.05982
  1. T. Papanikolaou, C.Tzerefos, S. Basilakos, E.N. Saridakis, Scalar induced gravitational waves from primordial black hole Poisson fluctuations in f(R) gravity, JCAP 10 (2022) 013, arXiv:2112.15059
  1. LISA Cosmology Working Group – Pierre Auclair et al., Cosmology with the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna, Living Rev.Rel. 26 (2023) 1, 5, arXiv:2204.05434
  1. T. Papanikolaou, C.Tzerefos, S. Basilakos, E.N. Saridakis, No constraints for f(T) gravity from gravitational waves induced from primordial black hole fluctuations, Eur. Phys. J. C 83 (2023) 01, arXiv:2205.06094
  1. T. Papanikolaou, Toward the primordial black hole formation threshold in a time-dependent equation-of-state background, Phys. Rev. D 105 (2022) 12, arXiv:2205.07748
  1. S. Banerjee, T. Papanikolaou, E. N. Saridakis, Constraining F(R) bouncing cosmologies with primordial black holes, Phys. Rev. D 106 (2022) 12, arXiv:2206.01150
  1. T. Papanikolaou, Gravitational waves induced from primordial black hole fluctuations: The effect of an extended mass function, JCAP 10 (2022) 089, arXiv:2207.11041
  1. N. Karnesis et al., The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna mission in Greece White Paper, Int.J.Mod.Phys.D 33 (2024) 07n08, 2450027, arXiv:2209.04358
  1. T. Papanikolaou, A. Lymperis, S. Lola, E.N. Saridakis, Primordial black holes and gravitational waves from non-canonical inflation, JCAP 03 (2023) 003, arXiv:2211.14900
  1. T. Papanikolaou, K.N. Gourgouliatos, Primordial magnetic field generation via primordial black hole disks, Phys. Rev. D 107 (2023) 10, arXiv:2301.10045
  1. T. Papanikolaou, Primordial black holes in loop quantum cosmology: The effect on the threshold, Class. Quantum. Grav. 40 (2023) 13, arXiv:2301.11439
  1. T. Papanikolaou, The H0 tension alleviated through ultra-light primordial black holes: an information insight through gravitational waves, Contribution to PoS CORFU22, arXiv:2303.00600
  1. C.Tzerefos, T. Papanikolaou, S. Basilakos, E.N. Saridakis, Scalar induced gravitational waves in modified teleparallel gravity theories, Phys. Rev. D 107 (2023) 12, arXiv:2303.16695
  1. T. Papanikolaou, K.N. Gourgouliatos, Constraining supermassive primordial black holes with magnetically induced gravitational waves, Phys. Rev. D 108 (2023) 06, 2306.05473
  1. S. Basilakos, D. V. Nanopoulos, T. Papanikolaou, E.N. Saridakis, C. Tzerefos, Gravitational-wave signatures of no-scale supergravity in NANOGrav and beyond, Phys. Lett. B 850 (2024) 138507, 2307.08601
  1. S. Basilakos, D. V. Nanopoulos, T. Papanikolaou, E.N. Saridakis, C. Tzerefos, Induced gravitational waves from flipped SU(5) superstring theory at nHz, Phys. Lett. B 849 (2024) 138446, 2309.15820
  1. LISA Cosmology Working Group – Eleni Bagui et al., Primordial black holes and their gravitational wave signatures, Living Rev.Rel. 28 (2025) 1, 1,2310.19857
  1. T. Papanikolaou, C. Tzerefos, S. Basilakos, E.N. Saridakis, N. E. Mavromatos, Revisiting string inspired running-vacuum models under the lens of light primordial black holes, Phys.Rev.D 110 (2024) 2, 2402.19373
  1. T. Papanikolaou, Xin-Chen He, Xiao-Han Ma, Yi-Fu Cai, E.N. Saridakis, M.Sasaki, New probe of non-Gaussianities with primordial black hole induced gravitational waves, Phys. Lett. B 857 (2024) 138997, 2403.00660
  1. T. Papanikolaou, S. Banerjee, Yi-Fu Cai, S. Capozziello, E.N. Saridakis, Primordial black holes and induced gravitational waves in non-singular matter bouncing cosmology, JCAP 06 (2024) 066, 2404.03779
  1. T. Papanikolaou, C. Tzerefos, S. Capozziello,G. Lambiase, Gravitational-wave signatures of gravitoelectromagnetic couplings, JCAP 01 (2025) 051, 2408.17259
  1. S. Basilakos, D. V. Nanopoulos, T. Papanikolaou, E.N. Saridakis, C. Tzerefos, Observable Signatures of No-Scale Supergravity in NANOGrav, Int. J. Mod. Phys. D 33 (2024) 15, 2441014, 2409.02936
  1. Xin-Chen He, Xiao-Han Ma, Yi-Fu Cai, T. Papanikolaou, E.N. Saridakis, M.Sasaki, Gravitational waves from primordial black hole isocurvature: the effect of non-Gaussianities, JCAP 12 (2024) 039, 2409.11333
  1. C. Tzerefos, T. Papanikolaou, S. Basilakos, E.N. Saridakis, N. E. Mavromatos, Gravitational wave signatures from reheating in Chern-Simons running-vacuum cosmology, Phys.Rev.D 111 (2025) 4, 2411.14223
  1. K. Dimopoulos, A. Ghoshal, T. Papanikolaou, Is inflationary magnetogenesis sensitive to the post-inflationary history?, Phys.Rev.D 111 (2025) 8, 2412.10367
  1. LISA Cosmology Working Group – Jonas El Gammal et al., Reconstructing Primordial Curvature Perturbations via Scalar-Induced Gravitational Waves with LISA, JCAP 05 (2025) 062, 2501.11320
  1. K. Dialektopoulos, T. Papanikolaou, V. Zarikas, Primordial black holes as cosmic expansion accelerators, Phys. Lett. B 870 (2025) 139948, 2502.18352
  1. A. Bhaumik, T. Papanikolaou, A. Ghoshal, Vector induced Gravitational Waves sourced by Primordial Magnetic Fields, JCAP 08 (2025) 054, 2504.10477
  1. T. Papanikolaou, Gravitational wave signatures of non-singular matter bouncing cosmology in NANOGrav and beyond, Contribution to PoS CORFU24, 2504.11641
  1. M. Chianese, G. Domènech, T. Papanikolaou, R. Samanta, N. Saviano, Induced Gravitational Waves as Cosmic Tracers of Leptogenesis, 2504.20135
  1. T. Papanikolaou, S. Capozziello, Primordial black hole induced gravitational waves in f(R) gravity, 2508.03939
  1. K. Dialektopoulos, T. Papanikolaou, V. Zarikas, Primordial black hole-driven cosmic acceleration, Int.J.Mod.Phys.D 34 (2025) 16, 2544015, 2511.18080
  1. D. Totolou, T. Papanikolaou, E.N. Saridakis, Primordial black hole dark matter from ultra-slow-roll inflation in Horndeski gravity, 2512.25044
  2. D. S. Kallifatides, T. Papanikolaou, E.N. Saridakis, Ultra-fast growth of primordial black holes through radiative absorption, 2601.18708