Andrii Tykhonov, researcher at the Ljubljana Jožef Stefan Institute, has won European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator grant to advance his research career. His project “Direct Detection of PeV Galactic Cosmic Rays in Space (PeVGALAXY)”, aims to accurately detect ultra-high-energy cosmic rays for the first time, which would enable scientists to precisely determine the source of the most powerful star explosions in our galaxy. By using measurements of cosmic rays, the project aims to solve one of the great mysteries of modern science – the nature of dark matter, which makes up most of the mass of the universe, while eluding direct detection.
Andrii was born in Odesa, Ukraine. He graduated with M.Sc. in High Energy Physics from Odesa National Polytechnic University, Ukraine in 2008. Already during his studies, he worked as software developer and system administrator. In 2013 he successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis entitled “Searches for dark matter and lepton-jets with the ATLAS detector” at The Jožef Stefan Institute in Ljubljana, Slovenia.
In 2019 Andrii was awarded the ERC Starting grant to carry out his project “Direct Detection of TeV-PeV Cosmic Rays in Space (PeVSPACE)” at The University of Geneva, Switzerland, aimed at applying state-of-the-art Artificial Intelligence techniques to fundamentally improve the science return of Space Astroparticle missions.
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